Continental Courts, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Continental Courts, 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 Continental Courts 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 Continental Courts — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Continental Courts — the short answer
Continental Courts, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 6b, about 205 days between hard freezes, across 185 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~205
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 185 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 Continental Courts's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Continental Courts's 205-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Continental Courts
Each reading below is measured for Continental Courts itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredContinental Courts runs about 205 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
MeasuredContinental Courts 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 Continental Courts is in
Continental Courts sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Continental Courts's own centroid rather than borrowed from Centre County.
What Grows in Continental Courts
Every plant below cleared Continental Courts's own zone 6b and its 205-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Continental Courts?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 1 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Continental Courts
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Continental Courts, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Continental Courts
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Continental Courts. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CE 421Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- CE 334Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- CAYMAN CHEMICAL COBrownfields · 1.2 mi
- HOWARD GROVE PRINTINGBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- FILLMORE GEN STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- CANNON INSTRUMENT COBrownfields · 1.4 mi
- UNIVERSITY PARK AIRPORTBrownfields · 1.4 mi
- ALLEGHENY AIRLINESBrownfields · 1.5 mi
- TSA AT UNIVERSITY PARK AIRPORTBrownfields · 1.5 mi
- PSU AVIATION MAINT HANGARUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- STATE OF THE ART/STATE COLLEGE PLTBrownfields · 1.5 mi
- STATE OF THE ART/STATE COLLEGE PLTToxics Release Inventory · 1.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Continental Courts'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 Continental Courts.
Total Sites
513
within ~10 miles of Continental Courts
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Continental Courts
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Continental Courts
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Continental Courts, PFAS runs higher than the national average — 7 sites within ~10 miles of Continental Courts. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Continental Courts
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 Continental Courts average
Your land is one point inside Continental Courts
Everything above resolves to Continental Courts as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 185 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 Continental Courts Average
Continental Courts Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Continental Courts
- ●One soil character for all of Continental Courts
- ●Frost dates read at Continental Courts's scale: Apr 10 to Nov 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Continental Courts's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Continental Courts
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Continental Courts, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Continental Courts averages can't show:
We read public map data around Continental Courts — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Continental Courts average
How we know this about Continental Courts
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 Continental Courts’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 Continental Courts
When does frost risk typically end in Continental Courts?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Continental Courts typically lands around Apr 10, 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 May 1.
When is the first frost in Continental Courts?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Continental Courts typically arrives around Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 18, so the watching starts about Oct 2 — about 205 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Continental Courts?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Continental Courts sees about 205 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Oct 18, about 170 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Continental Courts?
The federal record around Continental Courts is a meaningful one — 513 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (236), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.6 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 Continental Courts?
From about Oct 2 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 1 (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 1. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Continental Courts's scale — its 6b band and its 205-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Continental Courts'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 Continental Courts’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Continental Courts's own scale — its own ~205-day season between 28°F freezes, the 185 acres it covers and 513 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Continental Courts's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Continental Courts's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 10 and Nov 1 and the ~205-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 513 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Continental Courts, the closest Nitrate record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Continental Courts's boundary and the 185 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~205-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Continental Courts's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Continental Courtslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Continental Courts's 185 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Centre County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Centre 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 Centre County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Continental Courts's 185 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Continental Courts you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 185 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.6 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 Continental Courts-wide figureread your own land →
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