Booneville, Kentucky, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Booneville, 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 Booneville 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 Booneville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Booneville — the short answer
Booneville, Kentucky: USDA zone 6b, about 205 days between hard freezes, across 933 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~205
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 933 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 Booneville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Booneville's 205-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Booneville
Each reading below is measured for Booneville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBooneville runs about 205 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
MeasuredBooneville 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 Booneville is in
Booneville sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Booneville's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Owsley County is mostly Central Appalachians. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Booneville
Every plant below cleared Booneville's own zone 6b and its 205-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kentucky profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Booneville?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 7 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 29 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Booneville
Survey cells within 31 miles of Booneville checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 101 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Booneville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Booneville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Conley Pierson General StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- Booneville BPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- Booneville Car Wash & Service CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- Booneville AshlandUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- Callahan Iga SupermarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- H25A0008Nitrate · 2300 ft
- C & C GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- Paul Campbell ChevronUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- Peoples Rural Telephone CooperativeUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- Fast Lane Food & Fuel Center 15Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Booneville FoodmartUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- H25A0010Nitrate · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Booneville'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 Booneville.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Booneville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Booneville
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Booneville, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Booneville — PFAS (4 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (83 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Booneville
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 Booneville average
Your land is one point inside Booneville
Everything above resolves to Booneville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 933 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 city 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 Booneville Average
Booneville Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Booneville
- ●One soil character for all of Booneville
- ●Frost dates read at Booneville's scale: Apr 7 to Oct 29
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Booneville's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Booneville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Booneville, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Booneville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Booneville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Booneville average
How we know this about Booneville
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Booneville’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Booneville
When does frost risk typically end in Booneville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Booneville typically lands around Apr 7, 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 28.
When is the first frost in Booneville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Booneville typically arrives around Oct 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 15, so the watching starts about Sep 29 — about 205 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Booneville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Booneville sees about 205 frost-free days — roughly Apr 7 through Oct 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 28 to Oct 15, about 170 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Booneville?
The federal record around Booneville shows 106 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (83), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Booneville?
From about Sep 29 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 29 (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 29. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Booneville's scale — its 6b band and its 205-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Booneville'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 Booneville’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Booneville's own scale — its own ~205-day season between 28°F freezes, the 933 acres it covers and 106 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Booneville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Booneville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 7 and Oct 29 and the ~205-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 106 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Booneville, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Booneville's boundary and the 933 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~205-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Booneville sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Booneville checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Booneville's 933 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Owsley County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Owsley County
- The growing challenges every Kentucky grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Kentucky
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Owsley County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Booneville's 933 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Booneville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 933 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Booneville-wide figureread your own land →
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