New Kingstown, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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 New Kingstown, 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 New Kingstown 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 New Kingstown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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New Kingstown — the short answer
New Kingstown, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 7a, about 219 days between hard freezes, across 1K 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 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~219
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 New Kingstown's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against New Kingstown's 219-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in New Kingstown
Each reading below is measured for New Kingstown itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNew Kingstown runs about 219 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
MeasuredNew Kingstown 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 New Kingstown is in
New Kingstown sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at New Kingstown's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cumberland County.
What Grows in New Kingstown
Every plant below cleared New Kingstown's own zone 7a and its 219-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in New Kingstown?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. 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 6 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around New Kingstown
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from New Kingstown, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near New Kingstown
Closest first, within ~10 miles of New Kingstown. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SAFETY KLEEN SYS INC - NEW KINGSTOWN SVC CTRBrownfields · 750 ft
- SAFETY KLEEN SYS INC - NEW KINGSTOWN SVC CTRToxics Release Inventory · 750 ft
- CARLISLE DISTRIBUTION CENTERBrownfields · 850 ft
- SAFETY KLEENUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- VALK MFG COBrownfields · 1000 ft
- KEY GLASS BLDGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- SHAFFER TRUCKINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- MARTIN CAMPER SALESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- FRY COMMUNICATIONSBrownfields · 1600 ft
- CV MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- CU 307Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- COSTCO WHOLESALE NO 1719Brownfields · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from New Kingstown'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 New Kingstown.
Total Sites
1,123
within ~10 miles of New Kingstown
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of New Kingstown
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of New Kingstown
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.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in New Kingstown
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 New Kingstown average
Your land is one point inside New Kingstown
Everything above resolves to New Kingstown as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 New Kingstown Average
New Kingstown Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across New Kingstown
- ●One soil character for all of New Kingstown
- ●Frost dates read at New Kingstown's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not New Kingstown's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in New Kingstown
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in New Kingstown, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that New Kingstown averages can't show:
We read public map data around New Kingstown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the New Kingstown average
How we know this about New Kingstown
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 New Kingstown’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 New Kingstown
When does frost risk typically end in New Kingstown?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in New Kingstown 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 New Kingstown?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in New Kingstown 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 219 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in New Kingstown?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, New Kingstown sees about 219 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 23, about 184 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in New Kingstown?
The federal record around New Kingstown is a meaningful one — 1,123 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (644), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.1 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 New Kingstown?
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 New Kingstown's scale — its 7a band and its 219-day season. Your yard writes its own version of New Kingstown'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 New Kingstown’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at New Kingstown's own scale — its own ~219-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,020 acres it covers and 1,123 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- New Kingstown's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- New Kingstown's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 6 and the ~219-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,123 documented contamination sites on the federal record near New Kingstown, the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- New Kingstown's boundary and the 1,020 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~219-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at New Kingstown's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of New Kingstownlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so New Kingstown's 1,020 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cumberland County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cumberland 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 Cumberland County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among New Kingstown's 1,020 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of New Kingstown you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,020 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 New Kingstown-wide figureread your own land →