Leitchfield, Kentucky, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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.
Even in Leitchfield, 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 Leitchfield 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 Leitchfield — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Leitchfield — the short answer
Leitchfield, Kentucky: USDA zone 7a, about 216 days between hard freezes, across 7K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~216
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 7K 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 7a is Leitchfield's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Leitchfield's 216-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Leitchfield
Each reading below is measured for Leitchfield itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLeitchfield runs about 216 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
MeasuredLeitchfield 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 Leitchfield is in
Leitchfield sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Leitchfield's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Grayson County is mostly Interior River Valleys and Hills. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Leitchfield
Every plant below cleared Leitchfield's own zone 7a and its 216-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kentucky profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Leitchfield?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 3 — 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 Leitchfield
Survey cells within 31 miles of Leitchfield 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.
What's on the federal record near Leitchfield
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Leitchfield. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- The Campbell GroupUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- Old Home PlateUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- Warren Rural ElectricUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- LEGGETT & PLATT LEITCHFIELDToxics Release Inventory · 2000 ft
- Lowes Concrete Products IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- Key Oil LeitchfieldUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- VERMONT AMERICAN CORP. LEITCHFIELD DIV.Brownfields · 2100 ft
- VERMONT AMERICAN CORP. LEITCHFIELD DIV.Toxics Release Inventory · 2100 ft
- Rocky Ridge RacingUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Hatfield Fuel Service IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- CAMPBELL HAUSFELD LLCToxics Release Inventory · 2400 ft
- CAMPBELL HAUSFELD LLCBrownfields · 2400 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Leitchfield'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 Leitchfield.
Total Sites
152
within ~10 miles of Leitchfield
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Leitchfield
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Leitchfield
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Leitchfield, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Leitchfield — PFAS (3 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (110 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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 Leitchfield
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 Leitchfield average
Your land is one point inside Leitchfield
Everything above resolves to Leitchfield as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 7K 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 Leitchfield Average
Leitchfield Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Leitchfield
- ●One soil character for all of Leitchfield
- ●Frost dates read at Leitchfield's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Leitchfield's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Leitchfield
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Leitchfield, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Leitchfield averages can't show:
We read public map data around Leitchfield — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Leitchfield average
How we know this about Leitchfield
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 Leitchfield’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 Leitchfield
When does frost risk typically end in Leitchfield?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Leitchfield typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
When is the first frost in Leitchfield?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Leitchfield typically arrives around Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 20, so the watching starts about Oct 4 — about 216 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Leitchfield?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Leitchfield sees about 216 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 20, about 181 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Leitchfield?
The federal record around Leitchfield is a meaningful one — 152 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (110), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Leitchfield?
From about Oct 4 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 Nov 3 (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 Nov 3. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Leitchfield's scale — its 7a band and its 216-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Leitchfield'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 Leitchfield’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Leitchfield's own scale — its own ~216-day season between 28°F freezes, the 6,884 acres it covers and 152 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Leitchfield's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Leitchfield's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 3 and the ~216-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 152 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Leitchfield, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Leitchfield's boundary and the 6,884 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~216-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Leitchfield sits in the Interior Plateau — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Leitchfield 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 Leitchfield's 6,884 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Grayson County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Grayson 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 Grayson County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Leitchfield's 6,884 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Leitchfield you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 6,884 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 Leitchfield-wide figureread your own land →