Ridley Park, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Growers here do well with cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Ridley Park, 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 Ridley Park 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 Ridley Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Ridley Park — the short answer
Ridley Park, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 8a, about 253 days between hard freezes, across 691 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~253
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 691 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 8a is Ridley Park's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Ridley Park's 253-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Ridley Park
Each reading below is measured for Ridley Park itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredRidley Park runs about 253 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
MeasuredRidley Park sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
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 Ridley Park is in
Ridley Park sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Ridley Park's own centroid rather than borrowed from Delaware County.
What Grows in Ridley Park
Every plant below cleared Ridley Park's own zone 8a and its 253-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Ridley Park?
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 Feb 18; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 18 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 26 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Ridley Park
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Ridley Park, first recorded 2017. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Ridley Park
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Ridley Park. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CARROWS SVC CTRUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- CRUM CREEK PUMP STAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- ENVIRONMENTAL RECYCLING SERVICEBrownfields · 1600 ft
- TAYLOR HOSPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- DE 882Nitrate · 2000 ft
- LOUS GULF SVC STAUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- WAWA 8133Brownfields · 2300 ft
- RIDLEY PARK CTL OFCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- WAWA FOOD MARKET NO 8048Brownfields · 2400 ft
- CVS PHARMACY #0766Brownfields · 2400 ft
- WFM 8048Underground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- ACME 893Brownfields · 2500 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Ridley Park'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 Ridley Park.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Ridley Park
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Ridley Park
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Ridley Park, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 61 sites within ~10 miles of Ridley Park. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Ridley Park
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 Ridley Park average
Your land is one point inside Ridley Park
Everything above resolves to Ridley Park as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 691 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 Ridley Park Average
Ridley Park Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Ridley Park
- ●One soil character for all of Ridley Park
- ●Frost dates read at Ridley Park's scale: Mar 18 to Nov 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Ridley Park's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Ridley Park
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Ridley Park averages can't show:
We read public map data around Ridley Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Ridley Park average
How we know this about Ridley Park
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 Ridley Park’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 Ridley Park
When does frost risk typically end in Ridley Park?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Ridley Park typically lands around Mar 18, 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 8.
When is the first frost in Ridley Park?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Ridley Park typically arrives around Nov 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 12, so the watching starts about Oct 27 — about 253 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Ridley Park?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Ridley Park sees about 253 frost-free days — roughly Mar 18 through Nov 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 8 to Nov 12, about 218 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Ridley Park?
The federal record around Ridley Park runs heavier than most — 3,742 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,620), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Ridley Park?
From about Oct 27 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 26 (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 26. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Ridley Park's scale — its 8a band and its 253-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Ridley Park'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 Ridley Park’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Ridley Park's own scale — its own ~253-day season between 28°F freezes, the 691 acres it covers and 3,742 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Ridley Park's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Ridley Park's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 18 and Nov 26 and the ~253-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 3,742 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Ridley Park, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Ridley Park's boundary and the 691 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~253-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Ridley Park's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Ridley Parklydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Ridley Park's 691 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Delaware County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Delaware 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 Delaware County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Ridley Park's 691 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Ridley Park you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 691 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 Ridley Park-wide figureread your own land →
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