Todd County, in Kentucky, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Todd County lies within the Pennyroyal / Pennyrile (South-Central Kentucky Karst Plateau) — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Todd County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Todd 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 Todd County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Todd County — the short answer
Todd County, Kentucky: USDA zone 7a, about 232 days between hard freezes, across 240K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~232
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 240K 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 Todd County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Todd County's 232-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Todd County
Across a year, Todd County accumulates about 4,101 growing degree days above 50°F, about 441 more than the middle Kentucky county — ahead of 98 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.
Winter banks about 2,390 hours below 45°F. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Todd County
Across Todd County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Pembroke, Sadler, and Caneyville 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 B soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
50%
Hydric soils
3%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Todd County
The USDA soil survey maps 71% of Todd County as well drained — but another 29% drains differently: 22% moderately well drained, 5% somewhat poorly drained.
Pembroke is the most extensive named soil at 23% of mapped acres, then Sadler (9%) and Caneyville (8%).
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 Todd County
Each reading below is measured for Todd 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 Todd 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 Todd 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
Season length
MeasuredTodd 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
Winter hardiness
MeasuredTodd 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 Todd County is in
Todd County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Interior Plateau (84%) and Interior River Valleys and Hills (17%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Todd County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Todd 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 Todd 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 Feb 24; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 24 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 11 — 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 Todd County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Todd County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 54 miles off. What to watch for.
What gets applied to farmland in Todd County
USGS estimates 197,646 lb of Glyphosate on Todd County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (87,956 lb) and Atrazine (86,937 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 Todd County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Todd County — 109 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 6 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Todd 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 Todd County
Closest first, across Todd County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Adison Trucking CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- Henry Curtis & Imogene H Gill PropertyUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- ELKTON DIE CASTING L L CToxics Release Inventory · 1.9 mi
- FLEXCON CO INCBrownfields · 1.9 mi
- Southern Beef Purveyors IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- Texaco Service CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- Southern States Todd ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- U.S. TVA ELKTON 161 KV SUBSTATIONToxics Release Inventory · 2.3 mi
- Top Cat StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- Kinneys Service CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- Five Star #3500Underground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- ELKTON DIE CASTINGToxics Release Inventory · 2.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Todd 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 Todd County.
Total Sites
109
across Todd County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
6 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Todd County
Severity Distribution
across Todd County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Todd County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 77 sites across Todd 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 Todd 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 Todd County average
Your land is one point inside Todd County
Everything above resolves to Todd County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 240K 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 Todd County Average
Todd County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Todd County
- ●One soil character for all of Todd County
- ●Frost dates read at Todd County's scale: Mar 24 to Nov 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Todd County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Todd County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Todd County, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Todd County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Todd County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Todd County average
How we know this about Todd 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 Todd County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Todd County
When does frost risk typically end in Todd County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Todd County typically lands around Mar 24, 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 14.
How long is the growing season in Todd County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Todd County sees about 232 frost-free days — roughly Mar 24 through Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 14 to Oct 28, about 197 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Todd County?
The federal record around Todd County shows 109 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (77), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.4 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 Todd County's scale — its 7a band and its 232-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Todd 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 Todd County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Todd County's own scale — its own ~232-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 109 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Todd County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Todd 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 Todd CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 109 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Todd County's boundary and the 239,692 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~232-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Todd County spans, Interior Plateau the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Todd 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 Todd 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 Todd County's 239,692 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 109 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 Todd Countyread your own land →