Penn Estates, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Penn Estates, 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 Penn Estates 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 Penn Estates — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Penn Estates — the short answer
Penn Estates, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 6b, about 189 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~189
- 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 6b is Penn Estates's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Penn Estates's 189-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Penn Estates
Each reading below is measured for Penn Estates itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPenn Estates runs about 189 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredPenn Estates 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 Penn Estates is in
Penn Estates sits in the North Central Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northern Forests. That is read at Penn Estates's own centroid rather than borrowed from Monroe County.
What Grows in Penn Estates
Every plant below cleared Penn Estates's own zone 6b and its 189-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Penn Estates?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 20; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 17 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 23 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Even past midsummer there is room for a true fall garden here, and garlic planted near the close carries the momentum into next year.
Documented around Penn Estates
Spotted lanternfly documented 4 miles from Penn Estates, first recorded 2018. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Penn Estates
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Penn Estates. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SIBUMS AUTO PARTSBrownfields · 1.7 mi
- WEAVER PROPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- STARNERS QUIK SHOPPEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- AUTO IN MOTIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- STARNERS QUICK SHOPPESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- MOUNTAINHOME GULFUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- NAOMI COTTAGES CORNER PROPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- CVS PHARMACY #1270Brownfields · 2.0 mi
- DONALD B ROBBINSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- UNITED STEEL PRODS COBrownfields · 2.1 mi
- UNITED STEEL PRODS COToxics Release Inventory · 2.1 mi
- MONROE CAREER & TECH INSTITUTEBrownfields · 2.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Penn Estates'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 Penn Estates.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Penn Estates
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Penn Estates
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Penn Estates, PFAS runs higher than the national average — 5 sites within ~10 miles of Penn Estates. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Penn Estates
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 Penn Estates average
Your land is one point inside Penn Estates
Everything above resolves to Penn Estates 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 Penn Estates Average
Penn Estates Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Penn Estates
- ●One soil character for all of Penn Estates
- ●Frost dates read at Penn Estates's scale: Apr 17 to Oct 23
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Penn Estates's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Penn Estates
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Penn Estates, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Penn Estates averages can't show:
We read public map data around Penn Estates — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Penn Estates average
How we know this about Penn Estates
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 Penn Estates’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 Penn Estates
When does frost risk typically end in Penn Estates?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Penn Estates typically lands around Apr 17, 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 8.
When is the first frost in Penn Estates?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Penn Estates typically arrives around Oct 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 9, so the watching starts about Sep 23 — about 189 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Penn Estates?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Penn Estates sees about 189 frost-free days — roughly Apr 17 through Oct 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 8 to Oct 9, about 154 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Penn Estates?
The federal record around Penn Estates runs heavier than most — 433 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (258), the nearest Brownfields record about 1.7 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 Penn Estates?
From about Sep 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 Oct 23 (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 Oct 23. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Penn Estates's scale — its 6b band and its 189-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Penn Estates'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 Penn Estates’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Penn Estates's own scale — its own ~189-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,294 acres it covers and 433 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Penn Estates's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Penn Estates's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 17 and Oct 23 and the ~189-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 433 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Penn Estates, the closest Brownfields record about 1.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Penn Estates's boundary and the 1,294 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~189-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Penn Estates's own centroid, the North Central AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Penn Estateslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Penn Estates's 1,294 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Monroe County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Monroe 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 Monroe County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Penn Estates's 1,294 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Penn Estates you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,294 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 1.7 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 Penn Estates-wide figureread your own land →