Penns Creek, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Expect cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Penns Creek, 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 Penns Creek 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 Penns Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Penns Creek — the short answer
Penns Creek, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 6b, about 203 days between hard freezes, across 470 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)
- Oct 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~203
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 470 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 Penns Creek's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Penns Creek's 203-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Penns Creek
Each reading below is measured for Penns Creek itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPenns Creek runs about 203 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
MeasuredPenns Creek 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 Penns Creek is in
Penns Creek sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Penns Creek's own centroid rather than borrowed from Snyder County.
What Grows in Penns Creek
Every plant below cleared Penns Creek's own zone 6b and its 203-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Penns Creek?
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 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 Oct 30 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Penns Creek
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Penns Creek, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Penns Creek
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Penns Creek. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PENNS CREEK MUNICIPAL AUTHPFAS · 1000 ft
- WALTERS FURNITURE & APPLICANCE INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- FOUR LEAF CLOVERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- PENN VIEW BIBLE INSTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- WALNUT ACRESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- PENNS CREEK PIT STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- UN 207Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- CPR AUTO CTRBrownfields · 2.6 mi
- SN 185Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- IDDINGS QUARRYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- CENTER TWP GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- BOOPS FAMILY HOG FARMCAFO · 3.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Penns Creek'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 Penns Creek.
Total Sites
242
within ~10 miles of Penns Creek
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Penns Creek
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Penns Creek
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Penns Creek, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Penns Creek — CAFO (22 sites) and PFAS (3 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Penns Creek
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 Penns Creek average
Your land is one point inside Penns Creek
Everything above resolves to Penns Creek as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 470 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 Penns Creek Average
Penns Creek Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Penns Creek
- ●One soil character for all of Penns Creek
- ●Frost dates read at Penns Creek's scale: Apr 10 to Oct 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Penns Creek's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Penns Creek
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Penns Creek, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Penns Creek averages can't show:
We read public map data around Penns Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Penns Creek average
How we know this about Penns Creek
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 Penns Creek’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 Penns Creek
When does frost risk typically end in Penns Creek?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Penns Creek 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 Penns Creek?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Penns Creek typically arrives around Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 16, so the watching starts about Sep 30 — about 203 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Penns Creek?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Penns Creek sees about 203 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Oct 16, about 168 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Penns Creek?
The federal record around Penns Creek is a meaningful one — 242 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (104), the nearest PFAS 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 Penns Creek?
From about Sep 30 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 30 (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 30. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Penns Creek's scale — its 6b band and its 203-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Penns Creek'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 Penns Creek’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Penns Creek's own scale — its own ~203-day season between 28°F freezes, the 470 acres it covers and 242 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Penns Creek's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Penns Creek's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 10 and Oct 30 and the ~203-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 242 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Penns Creek, the closest PFAS record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Penns Creek's boundary and the 470 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~203-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Penns Creek's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Penns Creeklydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Penns Creek's 470 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Snyder County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Snyder 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 Snyder County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Penns Creek's 470 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Penns Creek you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 470 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest PFAS 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 Penns Creek-wide figureread your own land →
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