Pine Knot, Kentucky, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, pawpaw, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Pine Knot, 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 Pine Knot 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 Pine Knot — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Pine Knot — the short answer
Pine Knot, Kentucky: USDA zone 7a, about 203 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~203
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 4K 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 Pine Knot's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pine Knot's 203-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Pine Knot
Each reading below is measured for Pine Knot itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPine Knot runs about 203 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
MeasuredPine Knot 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 Pine Knot is in
Pine Knot sits in the Southwestern Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Pine Knot's own centroid rather than borrowed from McCreary County.
What Grows in Pine Knot
Every plant below cleared Pine Knot's own zone 7a and its 203-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kentucky profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Pine Knot?
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 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 7 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 27 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Pine Knot
Survey cells within 31 miles of Pine Knot checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 117 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Pine Knot
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Pine Knot. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Pine Knot Elementary SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- K & S Auto Logging SuppliesUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- Mos SpeedcoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- Dairy Cheer/ Shell ExpressUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- Lil Southfork General StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- Earl Andersons GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- Kidds Hdw & GasUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- D H Campbell IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- Wilsons Quik StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Bobs Tire ShopUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Pine Knot CccUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- A & M Grocery LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pine Knot'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 Pine Knot.
Total Sites
85
within ~10 miles of Pine Knot
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Pine Knot
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Pine Knot
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Pine Knot, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 79 sites within ~10 miles of Pine Knot. 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 Pine Knot
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 Pine Knot average
Your land is one point inside Pine Knot
Everything above resolves to Pine Knot as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 Pine Knot Average
Pine Knot Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Pine Knot
- ●One soil character for all of Pine Knot
- ●Frost dates read at Pine Knot's scale: Apr 7 to Oct 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pine Knot's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Pine Knot
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pine Knot, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pine Knot averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pine Knot — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pine Knot average
How we know this about Pine Knot
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 Pine Knot’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 Pine Knot
When does frost risk typically end in Pine Knot?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pine Knot typically lands around Apr 7, 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 28.
When is the first frost in Pine Knot?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Pine Knot typically arrives around Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 13, so the watching starts about Sep 27 — about 203 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Pine Knot?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pine Knot sees about 203 frost-free days — roughly Apr 7 through Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 28 to Oct 13, about 168 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Pine Knot?
The federal record around Pine Knot shows 85 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (79), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Pine Knot?
From about Sep 27 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 27 (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 27. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Pine Knot's scale — its 7a band and its 203-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pine Knot'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 Pine Knot’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Pine Knot's own scale — its own ~203-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,099 acres it covers and 85 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pine Knot's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pine Knot's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 7 and Oct 27 and the ~203-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 85 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Pine Knot, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Pine Knot's boundary and the 4,099 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~203-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Pine Knot's own centroid, the Southwestern AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Pine Knot 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 Pine Knot's 4,099 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom McCreary County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom McCreary 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 McCreary County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Pine Knot's 4,099 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Pine Knot you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,099 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Pine Knot-wide figureread your own land →