Dallastown, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Dallastown, 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 Dallastown 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 Dallastown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Dallastown — the short answer
Dallastown, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 7a, about 218 days between hard freezes, across 502 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~218
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 502 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 7a is Dallastown's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Dallastown's 218-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Dallastown
Each reading below is measured for Dallastown itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDallastown runs about 218 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
MeasuredDallastown sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Dallastown is in
Dallastown sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Dallastown's own centroid rather than borrowed from York County.
What Grows in Dallastown
Every plant below cleared Dallastown's own zone 7a and its 218-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Dallastown?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 6; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 3 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 7 — 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 Dallastown
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Dallastown, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Dallastown
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Dallastown. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SHIPLEY OIL COMPANYBrownfields · 250 ft
- DALLASTOWN EXXON 15Underground Storage Tanks · 250 ft
- TURKEY HILL 217Underground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- WOODMASTER PROD INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- DALLASTOWN BURIAL VAULT COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- C JOSEPH DELLER & SONSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- ROJAHNBrownfields · 1400 ft
- FAKE ROBERTS PARTNERSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- REDS AUTO BODY SHOPBrownfields · 1900 ft
- AC REIDERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- KEENER KITCHEN MFG COBrownfields · 2200 ft
- GOOD 2 GOUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Dallastown'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 Dallastown.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Dallastown
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Dallastown
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Dallastown, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 111 sites within ~10 miles of Dallastown. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Dallastown
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 Dallastown average
Your land is one point inside Dallastown
Everything above resolves to Dallastown as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 502 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 Dallastown Average
Dallastown Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Dallastown
- ●One soil character for all of Dallastown
- ●Frost dates read at Dallastown's scale: Apr 3 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Dallastown's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Dallastown
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Dallastown, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Dallastown averages can't show:
We read public map data around Dallastown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Dallastown average
How we know this about Dallastown
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 Dallastown’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 Dallastown
When does frost risk typically end in Dallastown?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Dallastown typically lands around Apr 3, 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 24.
When is the first frost in Dallastown?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Dallastown typically arrives around Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 24, so the watching starts about Oct 8 — about 218 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Dallastown?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Dallastown sees about 218 frost-free days — roughly Apr 3 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 24 to Oct 24, about 183 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Dallastown?
The federal record around Dallastown runs heavier than most — 1,243 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (667), the nearest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Dallastown?
From about Oct 8 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 7 (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 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Dallastown's scale — its 7a band and its 218-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Dallastown'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 Dallastown’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Dallastown's own scale — its own ~218-day season between 28°F freezes, the 502 acres it covers and 1,243 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Dallastown's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Dallastown's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 3 and Nov 7 and the ~218-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,243 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Dallastown, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Dallastown's boundary and the 502 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~218-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Dallastown's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Dallastownlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Dallastown's 502 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom York County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom York 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 York County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Dallastown's 502 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Dallastown you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 502 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile 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 Dallastown-wide figureread your own land →
More in Pennsylvania
Wider growing context
What grows across PennsylvaniaDallastown sits outside our named growing regions, so Pennsylvania as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides