Northwest Harborcreek, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Northwest Harborcreek, 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 Northwest Harborcreek 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 Northwest Harborcreek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Northwest Harborcreek — the short answer
Northwest Harborcreek, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 6b, about 226 days between hard freezes, across 3K 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 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~226
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 Northwest Harborcreek's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Northwest Harborcreek's 226-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Northwest Harborcreek
Each reading below is measured for Northwest Harborcreek itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNorthwest Harborcreek runs about 226 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
MeasuredNorthwest Harborcreek 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 Northwest Harborcreek is in
Northwest Harborcreek sits in the Eastern Great Lakes Lowlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Northwest Harborcreek's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Erie County is mostly Erie Drift Plain. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Northwest Harborcreek
Every plant below cleared Northwest Harborcreek's own zone 6b and its 226-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Northwest Harborcreek?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. 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 22 — 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 Northwest Harborcreek
Spotted lanternfly documented 1 miles from Northwest Harborcreek, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Northwest Harborcreek
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Northwest Harborcreek. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- COUNTRY FAIR 56Underground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- SHEETZ 367Underground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- KMART 4334Brownfields · 2200 ft
- PENSKE AUTO CTRBrownfields · 2200 ft
- K MART 4334Underground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- U HAUL CTR EAST SIDEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- NORTH AMER POWDER COATINGSBrownfields · 2400 ft
- QUAL KROMBrownfields · 2400 ft
- PA ELEC MOTOR SVC INC/HARBORCREEKBrownfields · 2500 ft
- THERMOCLAD IROQUOIS AVEToxics Release Inventory · 2500 ft
- GETGO 3438Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- GIANT EAGLE 4038Brownfields · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Northwest Harborcreek'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 Northwest Harborcreek.
Total Sites
1,019
within ~10 miles of Northwest Harborcreek
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
8 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Northwest Harborcreek
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Northwest Harborcreek
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Northwest Harborcreek, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 93 sites within ~10 miles of Northwest Harborcreek. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Northwest Harborcreek
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 Northwest Harborcreek average
Your land is one point inside Northwest Harborcreek
Everything above resolves to Northwest Harborcreek as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Northwest Harborcreek Average
Northwest Harborcreek Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Northwest Harborcreek
- ●One soil character for all of Northwest Harborcreek
- ●Frost dates read at Northwest Harborcreek's scale: Apr 10 to Nov 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Northwest Harborcreek's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Northwest Harborcreek
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Northwest Harborcreek, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Northwest Harborcreek averages can't show:
We read public map data around Northwest Harborcreek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Northwest Harborcreek average
How we know this about Northwest Harborcreek
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 Northwest Harborcreek’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 Northwest Harborcreek
When does frost risk typically end in Northwest Harborcreek?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Northwest Harborcreek 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 Northwest Harborcreek?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Northwest Harborcreek typically arrives around Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 8, so the watching starts about Oct 23 — about 226 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Northwest Harborcreek?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Northwest Harborcreek sees about 226 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Nov 8, about 191 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Northwest Harborcreek?
The federal record around Northwest Harborcreek is a meaningful one — 1,019 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (439), 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 Northwest Harborcreek?
From about Oct 23 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 22 (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 22. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Northwest Harborcreek's scale — its 6b band and its 226-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Northwest Harborcreek'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 Northwest Harborcreek’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Northwest Harborcreek's own scale — its own ~226-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,202 acres it covers and 1,019 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Northwest Harborcreek's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Northwest Harborcreek's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 10 and Nov 22 and the ~226-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,019 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Northwest Harborcreek, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Northwest Harborcreek's boundary and the 3,202 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~226-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Northwest Harborcreek sits in the Eastern Great Lakes Lowlands — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Northwest Harborcreeklydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Northwest Harborcreek's 3,202 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Erie County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Erie 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 Erie County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Northwest Harborcreek's 3,202 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Northwest Harborcreek you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,202 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 Northwest Harborcreek-wide figureread your own land →