South Wallins, Kentucky, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in South Wallins, 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 South Wallins 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 South Wallins — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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South Wallins — the short answer
South Wallins, Kentucky: USDA zone 7a, about 212 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 5
- 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
- ~212
- 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 South Wallins's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against South Wallins's 212-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in South Wallins
Each reading below is measured for South Wallins itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSouth Wallins runs about 212 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
MeasuredSouth Wallins 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 South Wallins is in
South Wallins sits in the Central Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at South Wallins's own centroid rather than borrowed from Harlan County.
What Grows in South Wallins
Every plant below cleared South Wallins's own zone 7a and its 212-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kentucky profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in South Wallins?
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 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 5 (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. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around South Wallins
Survey cells within 31 miles of South Wallins checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 67 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near South Wallins
Closest first, within ~10 miles of South Wallins. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Blaylock Service StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Wallins Elementary SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- Bobcats GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- Marthas Quick Stop The StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Simpsons Grocery & Gas IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- Howards MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- Test Oil IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- Harlan Co State Maintenance GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- NATIONAL ELECTRIC COIL CO./COOPER INDUSTRIESSuperfund · 2.8 mi
- Nolans GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- Coldiron Kwik MartUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
- HARLAN MUNICIPAL WATER WORKSPFAS · 3.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from South Wallins'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 South Wallins.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of South Wallins
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of South Wallins
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around South Wallins, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of South Wallins — Superfund (4 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (131 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in South Wallins
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 South Wallins average
Your land is one point inside South Wallins
Everything above resolves to South Wallins 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 South Wallins Average
South Wallins Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across South Wallins
- ●One soil character for all of South Wallins
- ●Frost dates read at South Wallins's scale: Apr 5 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not South Wallins's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in South Wallins
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in South Wallins, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that South Wallins averages can't show:
We read public map data around South Wallins — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the South Wallins average
How we know this about South Wallins
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 South Wallins’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 South Wallins
When does frost risk typically end in South Wallins?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in South Wallins typically lands around Apr 5, 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 26.
When is the first frost in South Wallins?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in South Wallins 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 212 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in South Wallins?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, South Wallins sees about 212 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 20, about 177 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in South Wallins?
The federal record around South Wallins is a meaningful one — 160 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (131), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.9 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 South Wallins?
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 South Wallins's scale — its 7a band and its 212-day season. Your yard writes its own version of South Wallins'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 South Wallins’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at South Wallins's own scale — its own ~212-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,040 acres it covers and 160 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- South Wallins's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- South Wallins's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Nov 3 and the ~212-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 160 documented contamination sites on the federal record near South Wallins, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.9 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- South Wallins's boundary and the 4,040 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~212-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at South Wallins's own centroid, the Central AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around South Wallins 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 South Wallins's 4,040 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Harlan County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Harlan 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 Harlan County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among South Wallins's 4,040 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of South Wallins you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,040 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.9 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 South Wallins-wide figureread your own land →
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