Breathitt County, in Kentucky, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Breathitt County lies within Appalachia — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Breathitt County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Breathitt County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Breathitt County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Breathitt County — the short answer
Breathitt County, Kentucky: USDA zone 7a, about 221 days between hard freezes, across 315K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~221
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 315K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 Breathitt County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Breathitt County's 221-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Breathitt County
Across a year, Breathitt County accumulates about 3,567 growing degree days above 50°F, about 93 fewer than the middle Kentucky county — ahead of 36 of Kentucky’s 120 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Breathitt County
Across Breathitt County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Shelocta, Gilpin, and Matewan are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.0–6.4, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
2%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Breathitt County
Shelocta is the most extensive named soil at 30% of mapped acres, then Gilpin (15%) and Matewan (10%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Breathitt County
Each reading below is measured for Breathitt County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Breathitt County are well drained, in hydrologic group B — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Breathitt County runs about pH 5.0–6.4, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredBreathitt County runs about 221 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
MeasuredBreathitt County 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 Breathitt County is in
Breathitt County sits in the Central Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Breathitt County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Breathitt County's own USDA zone 7a and its own 221-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Kentucky profile.
Is it too late to plant in Breathitt County?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 31 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 7 — 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 Breathitt County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Breathitt County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 88 miles off. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly11 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Breathitt County
USGS estimates 757 lb of Glyphosate on Breathitt County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (391 lb) and Atrazine (257 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Breathitt County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Breathitt County — 125 documented sites across 4 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Toxics Release Inventory facility. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Breathitt County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Breathitt County
Closest first, across Breathitt County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Former EJs Mini Mart & Breathitt OilUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- Strong PropertyUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- Jiffy Mart IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- C & J SupermarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- Go Time 3Underground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- Dex Mini MartUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- JACKSON ASPHALT PLANT C/OHINKLE CON.COR.Brownfields · 1.8 mi
- Jackson Bulk Plant 026Underground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- Former Hwy 15 StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- Tee Pee RestaurantUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- Breathitt Co State Maintenance GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- Jimmy Sizemore PropertyUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Breathitt County'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 Breathitt County.
Total Sites
125
across Breathitt County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
across Breathitt County
Severity Distribution
across Breathitt County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Breathitt County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 112 sites across Breathitt County. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Breathitt County
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 Breathitt County average
Your land is one point inside Breathitt County
Everything above resolves to Breathitt County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 315K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Breathitt County Average
Breathitt County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Breathitt County
- ●One soil character for all of Breathitt County
- ●Frost dates read at Breathitt County's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Breathitt County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Breathitt County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Breathitt County, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Breathitt County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Breathitt County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Breathitt County average
How we know this about Breathitt County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Breathitt County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Breathitt County
When does frost risk typically end in Breathitt County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Breathitt County typically lands around Mar 31, 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 21.
How long is the growing season in Breathitt County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Breathitt County sees about 221 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 24, about 186 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Breathitt County?
The federal record around Breathitt County shows 125 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (112), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.7 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.
Everything above is measured at Breathitt County's scale — its 7a band and its 221-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Breathitt County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Kentucky's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Breathitt County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Breathitt County's own scale — its own ~221-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 125 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Breathitt County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Breathitt County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~221-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Breathitt CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 125 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.7 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Breathitt County's boundary and the 315,150 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~221-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Breathitt County sitting wholly inside the Central AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Breathitt County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Breathitt County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Kentucky grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Kentucky
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Breathitt County — the ~221 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Breathitt County's 315,150 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 125 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Breathitt Countyread your own land →