Salunga, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Salunga, 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 Salunga 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 Salunga — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Salunga — the short answer
Salunga, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 7a, about 227 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~227
- 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 7a is Salunga's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Salunga's 227-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Salunga
Each reading below is measured for Salunga itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSalunga runs about 227 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
MeasuredSalunga 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 Salunga is in
Salunga sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Salunga's own centroid rather than borrowed from Lancaster County.
What Grows in Salunga
Every plant below cleared Salunga's own zone 7a and its 227-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Salunga?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 29 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 11 — 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 Salunga
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Salunga, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Salunga
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Salunga. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BURKHART EXCAVATINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- TE CONNECTIVITY/LANDISVILLEBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- TE CONNECTIVITY/LANDISVILLEToxics Release Inventory · 0.5 mi
- ZION EVAN LUTH CHUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- WEAVERS EXXON SVCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- SUNOCO SVC STABrownfields · 0.6 mi
- COOPER RH & SONBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- PENNSYLVANIA MALLEABLE IRONToxics Release Inventory · 0.7 mi
- HALDEMANS BODY SHOPBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- RICHARD STERBACK RESIDENCEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- ARTHUR J ULRICHUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- HOFFMAN SEEDS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Salunga'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 Salunga.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Salunga
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Salunga
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Salunga, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Salunga — CAFO (75 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (137 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Salunga
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 Salunga average
Your land is one point inside Salunga
Everything above resolves to Salunga 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 Salunga Average
Salunga Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Salunga
- ●One soil character for all of Salunga
- ●Frost dates read at Salunga's scale: Mar 29 to Nov 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Salunga's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Salunga
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Salunga, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Salunga averages can't show:
We read public map data around Salunga — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Salunga average
How we know this about Salunga
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 Salunga’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 Salunga
When does frost risk typically end in Salunga?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Salunga typically lands around Mar 29, 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 19.
When is the first frost in Salunga?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Salunga typically arrives around Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 28, so the watching starts about Oct 12 — about 227 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Salunga?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Salunga sees about 227 frost-free days — roughly Mar 29 through Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 19 to Oct 28, about 192 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Salunga?
The federal record around Salunga runs heavier than most — 1,831 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (948), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Salunga?
From about Oct 12 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 11 (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 11. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Salunga's scale — its 7a band and its 227-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Salunga'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 Salunga’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Salunga's own scale — its own ~227-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,151 acres it covers and 1,831 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Salunga's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Salunga's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 29 and Nov 11 and the ~227-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,831 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Salunga, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Salunga's boundary and the 1,151 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~227-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Salunga's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Salungalydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Salunga's 1,151 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Lancaster County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Lancaster 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 Lancaster County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Salunga's 1,151 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Salunga you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,151 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Salunga-wide figureread your own land →