Payne Gap, Kentucky, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Payne Gap, 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 Payne Gap 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 Payne Gap — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Payne Gap — the short answer
Payne Gap, Kentucky: USDA zone 7a, about 210 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~210
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 Payne Gap's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Payne Gap's 210-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Payne Gap
Each reading below is measured for Payne Gap itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPayne Gap runs about 210 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
MeasuredPayne Gap 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 Payne Gap is in
Payne Gap sits in the Central Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Payne Gap's own centroid rather than borrowed from Letcher County.
What Grows in Payne Gap
Every plant below cleared Payne Gap's own zone 7a and its 210-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kentucky profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Payne Gap?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 6; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 3 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 30 — 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 Payne Gap
Survey cells within 31 miles of Payne Gap checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 46 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Payne Gap
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Payne Gap. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- I29A0047Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- I29A0048Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- I29A0056Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- I29A0055Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- Jenkins Industrial ComplexUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Energy Express IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Kerns Bakery WarehouseUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- I29A0057Nitrate · 1.7 mi
- I29A0050Nitrate · 1.8 mi
- I29A0045Nitrate · 1.8 mi
- I29A0037Nitrate · 1.9 mi
- I29A0049Nitrate · 2.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Payne Gap'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 Payne Gap.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Payne Gap
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Payne Gap
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Payne Gap, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 207 sites within ~10 miles of Payne Gap. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Payne Gap
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 Payne Gap average
Your land is one point inside Payne Gap
Everything above resolves to Payne Gap as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 town 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 Payne Gap Average
Payne Gap Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Payne Gap
- ●One soil character for all of Payne Gap
- ●Frost dates read at Payne Gap's scale: Apr 3 to Oct 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Payne Gap's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Payne Gap
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Payne Gap, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Payne Gap averages can't show:
We read public map data around Payne Gap — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Payne Gap average
How we know this about Payne Gap
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Payne Gap’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 town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-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 Payne Gap
When does frost risk typically end in Payne Gap?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Payne Gap typically lands around Apr 3, 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 24.
When is the first frost in Payne Gap?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Payne Gap typically arrives around Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 16, so the watching starts about Sep 30 — about 210 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Payne Gap?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Payne Gap sees about 210 frost-free days — roughly Apr 3 through Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 24 to Oct 16, about 175 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Payne Gap?
The federal record around Payne Gap is a meaningful one — 340 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (207), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.6 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 Payne Gap?
From about Sep 30 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 30 (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 30. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Payne Gap's scale — its 7a band and its 210-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Payne Gap'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 Payne Gap’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Payne Gap's own scale — its own ~210-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,474 acres it covers and 340 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Payne Gap's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Payne Gap's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 3 and Oct 30 and the ~210-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 340 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Payne Gap, the closest Nitrate record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Payne Gap's boundary and the 1,474 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~210-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Payne Gap's own centroid, the Central AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Payne Gap 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 Payne Gap's 1,474 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Letcher County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Letcher 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 Letcher County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Payne Gap's 1,474 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Payne Gap you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,474 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.6 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 Payne Gap-wide figureread your own land →
More in Kentucky
Growing region
Nearby growing guides