Throop, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Throop, 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 Throop 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 Throop — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Throop — the short answer
Throop, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 6b, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~200
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 Throop's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Throop's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Throop
Each reading below is measured for Throop itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredThroop runs about 200 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
MeasuredThroop 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 Throop is in
Throop sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Throop's own centroid rather than borrowed from Lackawanna County.
What Grows in Throop
Every plant below cleared Throop's own zone 6b and its 200-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Throop?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 11 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 28 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Throop
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Throop, first recorded 2018. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Throop
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Throop. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ASSAI ENERGY, LLCBrownfields · 2100 ft
- RICHARD TOYOTABrownfields · 0.6 mi
- HARPERCOLLINS PUBUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- KEYSTONE MEDICAL LABORATORIES/ PATHOLOGY ASSOCBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- REUBEN H DONNELLEYBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- MAID RITE STEAK CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- TRANE COMPToxics Release Inventory · 1.0 mi
- THOMSON 1 & THOMSON 2Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- AIRLINE PETRO REEVES STREET GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- FIVE STAR EQUIPMENT INCBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- SUNOCO SVC STABrownfields · 1.1 mi
- RYDER TRUCK RENTAL 0609Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Throop'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 Throop.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Throop
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Throop
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Throop
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 Throop average
Your land is one point inside Throop
Everything above resolves to Throop as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Throop Average
Throop Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Throop
- ●One soil character for all of Throop
- ●Frost dates read at Throop's scale: Apr 11 to Oct 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Throop's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Throop
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Throop, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Throop averages can't show:
We read public map data around Throop — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Throop average
How we know this about Throop
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 Throop’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 Throop
When does frost risk typically end in Throop?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Throop typically lands around Apr 11, 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 2.
When is the first frost in Throop?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Throop typically arrives around Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 14, so the watching starts about Sep 28 — about 200 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Throop?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Throop sees about 200 frost-free days — roughly Apr 11 through Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 2 to Oct 14, about 165 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Throop?
The federal record around Throop runs heavier than most — 891 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (504), the nearest Brownfields 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 Throop?
From about Sep 28 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 28 (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 28. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Throop's scale — its 6b band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Throop'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 Throop’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Throop's own scale — its own ~200-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,180 acres it covers and 891 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Throop's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Throop's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 11 and Oct 28 and the ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 891 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Throop, the closest Brownfields record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Throop's boundary and the 3,180 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~200-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Throop's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Throoplydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Throop's 3,180 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Lackawanna County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Lackawanna 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 Lackawanna County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Throop's 3,180 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Throop you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,180 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Throop-wide figureread your own land →
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