Chester, NJ 07853 Frost Dates
07853, near Chester, NJ: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/26, roughly 241 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/18, roughly 176 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 6b (-5 to 0°F average annual minimum) comes from the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map; the frost dates above are the 1991-2020 normal at the nearest reporting NOAA station for Chester, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Chester's growing season runs out in roughly 7 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
The actual range around Chester's last frost
04/26 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/11 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/13 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Chester against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 176 frost-free days, Chester places 26,500 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NJ, it ranks 798 of 906.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 07853: local microclimates, on what one yard in Chester can differ from the 07853 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6b and Chester's frost date answer different questions.