Colerain, North Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
The conditions favor cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Colerain, 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 Colerain 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 Colerain — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Colerain — the short answer
Colerain, North Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 257 days between hard freezes, across 168 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~257
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 168 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 8a is Colerain's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Colerain's 257-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Colerain
Each reading below is measured for Colerain itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredColerain runs about 257 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
MeasuredColerain sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
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 Colerain is in
Colerain sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Colerain's own centroid rather than borrowed from Bertie County.
What Grows in Colerain
Every plant below cleared Colerain's own zone 8a and its 257-day season. Each card opens that plant's North Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Colerain?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 14 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 26 — 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 Colerain
Survey cells within 31 miles of Colerain checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 50 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Colerain
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Colerain. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DUCK THRU FOOD STORE 32Underground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- MOUNT GOULD GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- BE-028Nitrate · 1500 ft
- COLERAIN EXXONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- B&O. COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- CHESTER POWELL GROC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- MYERS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- EDENTON DYEING AND FINISHING LLCToxics Release Inventory · 3.0 mi
- CN-113 UNITED PIECE AND DyE WORKSNitrate · 3.0 mi
- CN-111Nitrate · 3.2 mi
- CN-132Nitrate · 3.3 mi
- CN-134Nitrate · 3.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Colerain'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 Colerain.
Total Sites
135
within ~10 miles of Colerain
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Colerain
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Colerain
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Colerain, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 60 sites within ~10 miles of Colerain. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
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 Colerain
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 Colerain average
Your land is one point inside Colerain
Everything above resolves to Colerain as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 168 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 Colerain Average
Colerain Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Colerain
- ●One soil character for all of Colerain
- ●Frost dates read at Colerain's scale: Mar 14 to Nov 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Colerain's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Colerain
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Colerain, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Colerain averages can't show:
We read public map data around Colerain — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Colerain average
How we know this about Colerain
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 Colerain’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 Colerain
When does frost risk typically end in Colerain?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Colerain typically lands around Mar 14, 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 4.
When is the first frost in Colerain?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Colerain typically arrives around Nov 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 12, so the watching starts about Oct 27 — about 257 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Colerain?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Colerain sees about 257 frost-free days — roughly Mar 14 through Nov 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 4 to Nov 12, about 222 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Colerain?
The federal record around Colerain shows 135 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (72), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Colerain?
From about Oct 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 Nov 26 (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 26. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Colerain's scale — its 8a band and its 257-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Colerain'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 Colerain’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Colerain's own scale — its own ~257-day season between 28°F freezes, the 168 acres it covers and 135 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Colerain's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Colerain's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 14 and Nov 26 and the ~257-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 135 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Colerain, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Colerain's boundary and the 168 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~257-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Colerain's own centroid, the Middle Atlantic Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Colerain 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 Colerain's 168 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Bertie County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Bertie County
- The growing challenges every North Carolina grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom North Carolina
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Bertie County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Colerain's 168 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Colerain you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 168 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Colerain-wide figureread your own land →