Daviess County, in Kentucky, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Daviess County lies within the Ohio River Valley — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Daviess County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Daviess 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 Daviess County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Daviess County — the short answer
Daviess County, Kentucky: USDA zone 7a, about 232 days between hard freezes, across 293K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~232
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 293K 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 Daviess County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Daviess County's 232-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Daviess County
Across a year, Daviess County accumulates about 4,128 growing degree days above 50°F, about 468 more than the middle Kentucky county — ahead of 101 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 Daviess County
Across Daviess County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Hosmer, Belknap, and Alford are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.8–5.9, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C/D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
22%
Hydric soils
17%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Daviess County
The USDA soil survey maps 31% of Daviess County as well drained — but another 65% drains differently: 27% moderately well drained, 22% somewhat poorly drained.
Hosmer is the most extensive named soil at 21% of mapped acres, then Belknap (13%) and Alford (11%).
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 Daviess County
Each reading below is measured for Daviess 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 Daviess County are well drained, in hydrologic group C/D — 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 Daviess County runs about pH 5.8–5.9, 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
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 17% of Daviess County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredDaviess County runs about 232 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
The kind of country Daviess County is in
Daviess County sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Daviess County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Daviess County's own USDA zone 7a and its own 232-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 Daviess County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 23 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 10 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Daviess County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Daviess County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 108 miles off. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle4 documented records
- monarch butterfly6 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Daviess County
USGS estimates 260,345 lb of Glyphosate on Daviess County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (120,619 lb) and Atrazine (117,632 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 Daviess County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Daviess County — 625 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 4 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Daviess County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Daviess County
Closest first, across Daviess County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Daviess Co High SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- Five Star #7500Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- Western Kentucky Gas CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- Quality Quick #14Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- City Of Owensboro Hillcrest GolfUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Shreeji Krupa IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Owensboro Point Of PresenceUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Even Steven Gas & StuffUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- GENERAL ELECTRIC CONTROL SYSTEMS - OWENSBORO MOTORS PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 0.8 mi
- G11B0048Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- Old Hartford Rd Soc Glc 53336Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- Kaminski Electric & Service Co IUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Daviess 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 Daviess County.
Sources Checked
across Daviess County
Severity Distribution
across Daviess County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Daviess County, two things run higher than the national average across Daviess County — PFAS (6 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (412 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 Daviess 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 Daviess County average
Your land is one point inside Daviess County
Everything above resolves to Daviess County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 293K 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 Daviess County Average
Daviess County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Daviess County
- ●One soil character for all of Daviess County
- ●Frost dates read at Daviess County's scale: Mar 23 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Daviess County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Daviess County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Daviess County, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Daviess County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Daviess County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Daviess County average
How we know this about Daviess 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 Daviess County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Daviess County
When does frost risk typically end in Daviess County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Daviess County typically lands around Mar 23, 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 13.
How long is the growing season in Daviess County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Daviess County sees about 232 frost-free days — roughly Mar 23 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 13 to Oct 27, about 197 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Daviess County?
The federal record around Daviess County is a meaningful one — 625 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (412), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
Everything above is measured at Daviess County's scale — its 7a band and its 232-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Daviess 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 Daviess County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Daviess County's own scale — its own ~232-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 625 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Daviess County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Daviess County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~232-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Daviess CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 625 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Daviess County's boundary and the 293,374 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~232-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Daviess County sitting wholly inside the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Daviess County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Daviess 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 Daviess County — the ~232 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 Daviess County's 293,374 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 625 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 Daviess Countyread your own land →