McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Expect cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in McKees Rocks, 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 McKees Rocks 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 McKees Rocks — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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McKees Rocks — the short answer
McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 7a, about 228 days between hard freezes, across 676 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~228
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 676 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 McKees Rocks's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against McKees Rocks's 228-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in McKees Rocks
Each reading below is measured for McKees Rocks itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMcKees Rocks runs about 228 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
MeasuredMcKees Rocks 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 McKees Rocks is in
McKees Rocks sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at McKees Rocks's own centroid rather than borrowed from Allegheny County.
What Grows in McKees Rocks
Every plant below cleared McKees Rocks's own zone 7a and its 228-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in McKees Rocks?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 15 — 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 McKees Rocks
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from McKees Rocks, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near McKees Rocks
Closest first, within ~10 miles of McKees Rocks. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- KWIK FILL S 4Underground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- ATLANTIC SERVICE STATIONBrownfields · 1300 ft
- FAMILY DOLLAR STORE NO 8379Brownfields · 1300 ft
- ATLANTIC 0364 1107Underground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- CROSSROADS 119Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- TRINITY INDUSTRIES INC PLT # 441Toxics Release Inventory · 1400 ft
- COGOS 496Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- QUALITY CLEANERSBrownfields · 1500 ft
- MCKEES ROCKS SVC FACUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- MCKEES ROCKS COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPBrownfields · 1600 ft
- HAMILTON SCHUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- ISENBERG AUTO BODYBrownfields · 1600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from McKees Rocks'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 McKees Rocks.
Total Sites
2,924
within ~10 miles of McKees Rocks
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
17 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of McKees Rocks
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of McKees Rocks
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •TRI facilities report what they release. Check the wind — downwind beds catch more of it.
Check your specific parcel in McKees Rocks
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 McKees Rocks average
Your land is one point inside McKees Rocks
Everything above resolves to McKees Rocks as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 676 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 McKees Rocks Average
McKees Rocks Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across McKees Rocks
- ●One soil character for all of McKees Rocks
- ●Frost dates read at McKees Rocks's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 15
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not McKees Rocks's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in McKees Rocks
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that McKees Rocks averages can't show:
We read public map data around McKees Rocks — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the McKees Rocks average
How we know this about McKees Rocks
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 McKees Rocks’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 McKees Rocks
When does frost risk typically end in McKees Rocks?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in McKees Rocks typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
When is the first frost in McKees Rocks?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in McKees Rocks typically arrives around Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 1, so the watching starts about Oct 16 — about 228 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in McKees Rocks?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, McKees Rocks sees about 228 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Nov 1, about 193 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in McKees Rocks?
The federal record around McKees Rocks is a meaningful one — 2,924 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,396), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 McKees Rocks?
From about Oct 16 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 15 (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 15. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at McKees Rocks's scale — its 7a band and its 228-day season. Your yard writes its own version of McKees Rocks'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 McKees Rocks’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at McKees Rocks's own scale — its own ~228-day season between 28°F freezes, the 676 acres it covers and 2,924 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- McKees Rocks's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- McKees Rocks's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 15 and the ~228-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,924 documented contamination sites on the federal record near McKees Rocks, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- McKees Rocks's boundary and the 676 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~228-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at McKees Rocks's own centroid, the Western Allegheny PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of McKees Rockslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so McKees Rocks's 676 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Allegheny County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Allegheny 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 Allegheny County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among McKees Rocks's 676 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of McKees Rocks you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 676 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 McKees Rocks-wide figureread your own land →