Jacobus, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Jacobus, 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 Jacobus 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 Jacobus — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Jacobus — the short answer
Jacobus, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 7a, about 211 days between hard freezes, across 596 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~211
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 596 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 Jacobus's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Jacobus's 211-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Jacobus
Each reading below is measured for Jacobus itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredJacobus runs about 211 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
MeasuredJacobus 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 Jacobus is in
Jacobus sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Jacobus's own centroid rather than borrowed from York County.
What Grows in Jacobus
Every plant below cleared Jacobus's own zone 7a and its 211-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Jacobus?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 2 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Jacobus
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Jacobus, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Jacobus
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Jacobus. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- RUTTERS FARM STORE 51Underground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- LEADERS INTERIORSUnderground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- INNERST AUTO COUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- RALPH P INNEREST INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- TYCO ELECTRONICSToxics Release Inventory · 1800 ft
- SIPE PLUMBING HEATING & AIR CONDITIONINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- DAVID W HASSLERUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- HAKES BODY SHOPBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- RL JACKSON CONSTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- YORK IMPERIAL PLASTICS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- RUTTERS FARM STORE 16AUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- AMP BLDG 052Underground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Jacobus'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 Jacobus.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Jacobus
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Jacobus
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Jacobus, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 118 sites within ~10 miles of Jacobus. 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 Jacobus
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 Jacobus average
Your land is one point inside Jacobus
Everything above resolves to Jacobus as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 596 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 Jacobus Average
Jacobus Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Jacobus
- ●One soil character for all of Jacobus
- ●Frost dates read at Jacobus's scale: Apr 5 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Jacobus's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Jacobus
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Jacobus, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Jacobus averages can't show:
We read public map data around Jacobus — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Jacobus average
How we know this about Jacobus
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 Jacobus’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 Jacobus
When does frost risk typically end in Jacobus?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Jacobus typically lands around Apr 5, 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 26.
When is the first frost in Jacobus?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Jacobus typically arrives around Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 19, so the watching starts about Oct 3 — about 211 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Jacobus?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Jacobus sees about 211 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 19, about 176 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Jacobus?
The federal record around Jacobus runs heavier than most — 1,270 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (691), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles 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 Jacobus?
From about Oct 3 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 2 (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 2. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Jacobus's scale — its 7a band and its 211-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Jacobus'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 Jacobus’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Jacobus's own scale — its own ~211-day season between 28°F freezes, the 596 acres it covers and 1,270 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Jacobus's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Jacobus's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Nov 2 and the ~211-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,270 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Jacobus, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Jacobus's boundary and the 596 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~211-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Jacobus's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Jacobuslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Jacobus's 596 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 Jacobus's 596 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Jacobus you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 596 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Jacobus-wide figureread your own land →
More in Pennsylvania
Wider growing context
What grows across PennsylvaniaJacobus sits outside our named growing regions, so Pennsylvania as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides