Coal Center, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Coal Center, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Coal Center lot. Enter your address and we'll score 1,086 plants against your land's actual soil, sun, and frost.
We read public map data around Coal Center — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Coal Center — the short answer
Coal Center, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 6b, about 216 days between hard freezes, across 73 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~216
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 73 acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 28°F normals: light frosts run a few weeks past them, and tender transplants usually wait 2–3 weeks after the last hard freeze.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 6b is Coal Center's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Coal Center's 216-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Coal Center
Each reading below is measured for Coal Center itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCoal Center runs about 216 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredCoal Center sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
The zone sets which perennials, shrubs, and fruit trees live through an average winter here — a plant rated for a colder zone is a safe bet, one rated warmer needs winter protection or gets treated as an annual.
Match perennials and fruit to the zone before you buy, so nothing you plant is a gamble against the cold.
USDA PHZM 2023
The kind of country Coal Center is in
Coal Center sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Coal Center's own centroid rather than borrowed from Washington County.
What Grows in Coal Center
Every plant below cleared Coal Center's own zone 6b and its 216-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Coal Center?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 4 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 6 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Coal Center
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Coal Center, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Coal Center
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Coal Center. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- POWELLS CITGO SVCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- CALIFORNIA BORO GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- NEWELL CAR SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- KWIK FILL S 0012Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- WATER & SEW TRMT PLTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- LIBERTY TOWER HIGHRISE FOR THE ELDERLYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- KWIK FILL S0012 231Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- GLOTT SVC STAUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- HENWILUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- NEO SOLUTIONS INCBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY PABrownfields · 0.8 mi
- HENWIL CORPBrownfields · 1.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Coal Center's center, not your beds. Run your own address for what's upwind of you specifically.
Environmental Intelligence
The counts behind that headline — every source type on the record near Coal Center.
Total Sites
533
within ~10 miles of Coal Center
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Coal Center
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Coal Center
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Coal Center, PFAS runs higher than the national average — 5 sites within ~10 miles of Coal Center. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Coal Center
Get exact proximity distances to contamination sources for your specific parcel — plus soil, sun, drainage, and 1,086 plant recommendations.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Coal Center average
Your land is one point inside Coal Center
Everything above resolves to Coal Center as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 73 acres. Your parcel is one point inside that footprint. Slope, tree cover, a low spot that pools cold air, and what is in the soil are all resolved at the address, and none of them are visible at town scale. That is the honest boundary of this page, and the reason the next step is a reading of your own ground rather than a better local average.
Your Lot vs the Coal Center Average
Coal Center Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Coal Center
- ●One soil character for all of Coal Center
- ●Frost dates read at Coal Center's scale: Apr 4 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Coal Center's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Coal Center
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Coal Center, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Coal Center averages can't show:
We read public map data around Coal Center — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Coal Center average
How we know this about Coal Center
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Coal Center’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Coal Center
When does frost risk typically end in Coal Center?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Coal Center typically lands around Apr 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — earlier than the light-frost dates most charts quote. That marks the hard freeze, not the last light frost — lighter frosts keep biting past it, which is why tender transplants here wait until about Apr 25.
When is the first frost in Coal Center?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Coal Center typically arrives around Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 23, so the watching starts about Oct 7 — about 216 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Coal Center?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Coal Center sees about 216 frost-free days — roughly Apr 4 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 25 to Oct 23, about 181 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Coal Center?
The federal record around Coal Center is a meaningful one — 533 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (302), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Coal Center?
From about Oct 7 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Nov 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Nov 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Coal Center's scale — its 6b band and its 216-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Coal Center's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Coal Center’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Coal Center's own scale — its own ~216-day season between 28°F freezes, the 73 acres it covers and 533 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Coal Center's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Coal Center's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 4 and Nov 6 and the ~216-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 533 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Coal Center, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Coal Center's boundary and the 73 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~216-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Coal Center's own centroid, the Western Allegheny PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Coal Centerlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Coal Center's 73 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Washington County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Washington County
- The growing challenges every Pennsylvania grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Pennsylvania
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Washington County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Coal Center's 73 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Coal Center you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 73 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Coal Center-wide figureread your own land →
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