Old Orchard, 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 Old Orchard, 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 Old Orchard 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 Old Orchard — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Old Orchard — the short answer
Old Orchard, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 7a, about 214 days between hard freezes, across 467 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 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~214
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 467 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 Old Orchard's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Old Orchard's 214-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Old Orchard
Each reading below is measured for Old Orchard itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredOld Orchard runs about 214 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
MeasuredOld Orchard 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 Old Orchard is in
Old Orchard sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Old Orchard's own centroid rather than borrowed from Northampton County.
What Grows in Old Orchard
Every plant below cleared Old Orchard's own zone 7a and its 214-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Old Orchard?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. 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 5 — 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 Old Orchard
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Old Orchard, first recorded 2016. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Old Orchard
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Old Orchard. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PALMER TWP MUNI SEW AUTHUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- MINE LANE ROAD PUMP STAUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- PALMER TWP MUNI SEW AUTH PUMP STAUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- H & H TRANSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- SUNOCO SVC STABrownfields · 0.7 mi
- SUNOCO 0363 4417Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- NORTHAMPTON CNTY MAINT BLDG 0550Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- PALMER TWP MUNI BLDGUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- POLICE GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- SHERIDAN DRIVE PUMP STAUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- SUBURBAN CLNR/EASTONBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- AIR PRODUCTS ECDBrownfields · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Old Orchard'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 Old Orchard.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Old Orchard
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Old Orchard
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Old Orchard, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 100 sites within ~10 miles of Old Orchard. 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 Old Orchard
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 Old Orchard average
Your land is one point inside Old Orchard
Everything above resolves to Old Orchard as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 467 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 Old Orchard Average
Old Orchard Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Old Orchard
- ●One soil character for all of Old Orchard
- ●Frost dates read at Old Orchard's scale: Apr 5 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Old Orchard's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Old Orchard
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Old Orchard, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Old Orchard averages can't show:
We read public map data around Old Orchard — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Old Orchard average
How we know this about Old Orchard
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 Old Orchard’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 Old Orchard
When does frost risk typically end in Old Orchard?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Old Orchard 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 Old Orchard?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Old Orchard typically arrives around Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 22, so the watching starts about Oct 6 — about 214 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Old Orchard?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Old Orchard sees about 214 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 22, about 179 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Old Orchard?
The federal record around Old Orchard is a meaningful one — 1,542 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (845), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Old Orchard?
From about Oct 6 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 5 (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 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Old Orchard's scale — its 7a band and its 214-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Old Orchard'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 Old Orchard’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Old Orchard's own scale — its own ~214-day season between 28°F freezes, the 467 acres it covers and 1,542 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Old Orchard's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Old Orchard's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Nov 5 and the ~214-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,542 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Old Orchard, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Old Orchard's boundary and the 467 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~214-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Old Orchard's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Old Orchardlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Old Orchard's 467 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Northampton County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Northampton 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 Northampton County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Old Orchard's 467 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Old Orchard you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 467 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Old Orchard-wide figureread your own land →