Penn State Berks, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Penn State Berks, 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 State Berks 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 State Berks — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Penn State Berks — the short answer
Penn State Berks, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 7a, about 223 days between hard freezes, across 266 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 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~223
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 266 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 Penn State Berks's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Penn State Berks's 223-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Penn State Berks
Each reading below is measured for Penn State Berks itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPenn State Berks runs about 223 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
MeasuredPenn State Berks 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 Penn State Berks is in
Penn State Berks sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Penn State Berks's own centroid rather than borrowed from Berks County.
What Grows in Penn State Berks
Every plant below cleared Penn State Berks's own zone 7a and its 223-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Penn State Berks?
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 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 10 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Penn State Berks
Spotted lanternfly documented 1 miles from Penn State Berks, first recorded 2017. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Penn State Berks
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Penn State Berks. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PENN STATE BERKSBrownfields · 1700 ft
- BERKS CAMPUSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- WAWA FOOD MARKET 147Brownfields · 2500 ft
- WAWA 147Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- ASPEN DENTALBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- PETCO #1734Brownfields · 0.5 mi
- DICKS SPORTING GOODS NO 023Brownfields · 0.5 mi
- TARGET STORE T1222Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- CVS PHARMACY NO 16577Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- SPRING RIDGE ONE MERIDIAN BLVDUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- JC EHRLICH HQUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- TURKEY HILL 242Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Penn State Berks'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 State Berks.
Total Sites
1,488
within ~10 miles of Penn State Berks
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
12 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Penn State Berks
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Penn State Berks
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Penn State Berks, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 94 sites within ~10 miles of Penn State Berks. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
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 Penn State Berks
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 State Berks average
Your land is one point inside Penn State Berks
Everything above resolves to Penn State Berks as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 266 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 State Berks Average
Penn State Berks Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Penn State Berks
- ●One soil character for all of Penn State Berks
- ●Frost dates read at Penn State Berks's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Penn State Berks's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Penn State Berks
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Penn State Berks, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Penn State Berks averages can't show:
We read public map data around Penn State Berks — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Penn State Berks average
How we know this about Penn State Berks
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 State Berks’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 State Berks
When does frost risk typically end in Penn State Berks?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Penn State Berks 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 Penn State Berks?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Penn State Berks typically arrives around Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 27, so the watching starts about Oct 11 — about 223 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Penn State Berks?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Penn State Berks sees about 223 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 27, about 188 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Penn State Berks?
The federal record around Penn State Berks runs heavier than most — 1,488 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (812), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.3 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 State Berks?
From about Oct 11 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 10 (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 10. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Penn State Berks's scale — its 7a band and its 223-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Penn State Berks'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 State Berks’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Penn State Berks's own scale — its own ~223-day season between 28°F freezes, the 266 acres it covers and 1,488 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Penn State Berks's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Penn State Berks's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 10 and the ~223-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,488 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Penn State Berks, the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Penn State Berks's boundary and the 266 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~223-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Penn State Berks's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Penn State Berkslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Penn State Berks's 266 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Berks County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Berks 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 Berks County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Penn State Berks's 266 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Penn State Berks you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 266 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Penn State Berks-wide figureread your own land →
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