Climate and Soil
I live in Southeastern Pennsylvania in the Schuylkill River Watershed (Middle Schuylkill Subwatershed), which is in the Delaware Valley and on the Piedmont Plateau. We're in the Northeastern American Mixed Forests (NA10) bioregion, and the Northeast US Coastal Forests ecoregion.
The climate here is mostly humid subtropical but with a few areas of hot-summer humid continental. Plant hardiness zones range from 6a to 7b. We have endless low rolling hills and lots (LOTS!) of red clay soil, or ultisol. That clay represents a wonderful variety of minerals, different rock formations, and geological eras. A result of the many mountains that have been and gone in ages long past! These minerals are especially found in the many mesozoic sedimentary basins dotting our landscape.
The clay can be difficult for many plants to thrive in, which makes it even more important to grow native plants that are already adapted to it. Many gardeners here just use raised beds and purchase "good" soil to fill them, rather than having to deal with the existing soil at all. I dislike this approach for two reasons: One, the gardening soil industry is terrible for the enviroment, and two, you're fighting an uphill battle against what would naturally happen. It's much better to just look at what is already inclined to happen here, and co-opt that for your own purposes!
History
In the past this area would have either been bordering or possibly a part of the Eastern Agricultural Complex. Little is actually known about that, but it's an active area of research. What we do know, and what very few people realized until recently, is that it happens to be one of the few places in the world that certain aspects of agriculture were independendtly discovered. Specifically, we have evidence that the people in this region were in process of domesticating many native plants into more useful (to us) forms. A few were wildly successful and things you've heard of today, like sunflowers and squash. The rest have been almost lost to history, but all that potential is still out there.
Where I live now is occupied land, squarely in the middle of Lenapehoking. I've had trouble learning much about their agriculture, partially because the colonizers never recognized what they were seeing as agriculture in the first place, and partly because more advanced crops traded from much further South had already largely supplanted many of the native species by the time the colonizers arrived.