Rawlings, Maryland, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Rawlings, 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 Rawlings 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 Rawlings — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Rawlings — the short answer
Rawlings, Maryland: USDA zone 7a, about 210 days between hard freezes, across 572 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~210
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 572 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 Rawlings's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Rawlings's 210-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Rawlings
Each reading below is measured for Rawlings itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredRawlings 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
MeasuredRawlings 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 Rawlings is in
Rawlings sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Rawlings's own centroid rather than borrowed from Allegany County.
What Grows in Rawlings
Every plant below cleared Rawlings's own zone 7a and its 210-day season. Each card opens that plant's Maryland profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Rawlings?
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 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 4 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 31 — 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 Rawlings
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Rawlings, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Rawlings
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Rawlings. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Walter E. Merrill, Builder, IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- MILLERS AUTOMOTIVEBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- QUARRY RIDGE CORPORATIONBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- Min-0171Nitrate · 2.0 mi
- Min-0172Nitrate · 2.2 mi
- AMERICAN WOODMARK CORP ALLEGANY PLANTBrownfields · 2.6 mi
- AMERICAN WOODMARK CORP ALLEGANY PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 2.6 mi
- ALLIANT TECHSYSTEMS OPERATIONS LLC, ALLEGANY BALLISTICSToxics Release Inventory · 2.7 mi
- ALLIANT TECHSYSTEMS OPERATIONS LLC, ALLEGANY BALLISTICSBrownfields · 2.7 mi
- ALLEGANY BALLISTICS LABORATORY (USNAVY)Superfund · 2.7 mi
- Walter Yoder & Sons, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- ALLEGANY BALLISTICS LABORATORYUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Rawlings'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 Rawlings.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Rawlings
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Rawlings
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Rawlings, PFAS runs higher than the national average — 7 sites within ~10 miles of Rawlings. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Rawlings
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 Rawlings average
Your land is one point inside Rawlings
Everything above resolves to Rawlings as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 572 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 Rawlings Average
Rawlings Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Rawlings
- ●One soil character for all of Rawlings
- ●Frost dates read at Rawlings's scale: Apr 4 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Rawlings's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Rawlings
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Rawlings, Maryland — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Rawlings averages can't show:
We read public map data around Rawlings — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Rawlings average
How we know this about Rawlings
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 Rawlings’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 Rawlings
When does frost risk typically end in Rawlings?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Rawlings typically lands around Apr 4, 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 25.
When is the first frost in Rawlings?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Rawlings typically arrives around Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 17, so the watching starts about Oct 1 — about 210 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Rawlings?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Rawlings sees about 210 frost-free days — roughly Apr 4 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 25 to Oct 17, about 175 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Rawlings?
The federal record around Rawlings is a meaningful one — 440 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (264), 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 Rawlings?
From about Oct 1 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 31 (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 31. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Rawlings's scale — its 7a band and its 210-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Rawlings'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 Rawlings’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Rawlings's own scale — its own ~210-day season between 28°F freezes, the 572 acres it covers and 440 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Rawlings's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Rawlings's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 4 and Oct 31 and the ~210-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 440 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Rawlings, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.9 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Rawlings's boundary and the 572 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 Rawlings's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Rawlingslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Rawlings's 572 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Allegany County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Allegany County
- The growing challenges every Maryland grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Maryland
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Allegany County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Rawlings's 572 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Rawlings you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 572 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 Rawlings-wide figureread your own land →
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