Terre Hill, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Terre Hill, 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 Terre Hill 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 Terre Hill — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Terre Hill — the short answer
Terre Hill, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 7a, about 222 days between hard freezes, across 291 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 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~222
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 291 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 Terre Hill's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Terre Hill's 222-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Terre Hill
Each reading below is measured for Terre Hill itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredTerre Hill runs about 222 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
MeasuredTerre Hill 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 Terre Hill is in
Terre Hill sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Terre Hill's own centroid rather than borrowed from Lancaster County.
What Grows in Terre Hill
Every plant below cleared Terre Hill's own zone 7a and its 222-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Terre Hill?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. 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 9 — 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 Terre Hill
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Terre Hill, first recorded 2017. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Terre Hill
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Terre Hill. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- RICHARD GRIMES FORKLIFTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- STYLECRAFT CORP/TERRE HILLBrownfields · 1300 ft
- TERRE HILL CONCRETE PRODUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- A VIEW APTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- FH 38451 AJAYS MINI MKTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- CHARLES M SHIRK TRUCKINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- TOWN & COUNTRY AUTOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- ELTON Z EBYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- LN 1640Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- BILLY R SHUMATEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- DANIEL LEROY BURKHOLDERUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- VALLEY PROTEINS INC - TERRE HILL PLANTBrownfields · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Terre Hill'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 Terre Hill.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Terre Hill
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Terre Hill
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Terre Hill, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Terre Hill — CAFO (26 sites) and Nitrate (490 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.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Terre Hill
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 Terre Hill average
Your land is one point inside Terre Hill
Everything above resolves to Terre Hill as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 291 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 Terre Hill Average
Terre Hill Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Terre Hill
- ●One soil character for all of Terre Hill
- ●Frost dates read at Terre Hill's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Terre Hill's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Terre Hill
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Terre Hill, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Terre Hill averages can't show:
We read public map data around Terre Hill — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Terre Hill average
How we know this about Terre Hill
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 Terre Hill’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 Terre Hill
When does frost risk typically end in Terre Hill?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Terre Hill 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 Terre Hill?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Terre Hill typically arrives around Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 26, so the watching starts about Oct 10 — about 222 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Terre Hill?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Terre Hill sees about 222 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 26, about 187 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Terre Hill?
The federal record around Terre Hill runs heavier than most — 1,285 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (507), 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 Terre Hill?
From about Oct 10 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 9 (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 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Terre Hill's scale — its 7a band and its 222-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Terre Hill'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 Terre Hill’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Terre Hill's own scale — its own ~222-day season between 28°F freezes, the 291 acres it covers and 1,285 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Terre Hill's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Terre Hill's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 9 and the ~222-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,285 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Terre Hill, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Terre Hill's boundary and the 291 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~222-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Terre Hill's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Terre Hilllydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Terre Hill's 291 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 Terre Hill's 291 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Terre Hill you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 291 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 Terre Hill-wide figureread your own land →