Avery County, in North Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Avery County lies within the North Carolina High Country and the Blue Ridge — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Avery County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Avery County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Avery County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Avery County — the short answer
Avery County, North Carolina: USDA zone 6b, about 187 days between hard freezes, across 158K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~187
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 158K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 6b is Avery County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Avery County's 187-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Avery County
Across a year, Avery County accumulates about 2,036 growing degree days above 50°F, about 2,354 fewer than the middle North Carolina county — ahead of 2 of North Carolina’s 100 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Avery County
Across Avery County, the ground is predominantly Inceptisols, where Porters, Chestnut, and Unaka are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a gravelly loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.8–5.3, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Inceptisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
1%
Hydric soils
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Avery County
The USDA soil survey maps 92% of Avery County as well drained — but another 7% drains differently: 4% somewhat excessively drained, 1% moderately well drained.
Porters is the most extensive named soil at 13% of mapped acres, then Chestnut (8%) and Unaka (8%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Avery County
Each reading below is measured for Avery County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Avery County are well drained, in hydrologic group B — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Avery County runs about pH 4.8–5.3, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredAvery County runs about 187 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredAvery County sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Avery County is in
Avery County sits in the Blue Ridge — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Avery County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Avery County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 187-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's North Carolina profile.
Is it too late to plant in Avery County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 20 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 24 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Late in the year the fall bench takes over — quick greens, radishes, and garlic that repays you next summer.
Documented around Avery County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Avery County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 37 miles off. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle3 documented records
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Avery County
USGS estimates 1,820 lb of 2,4-d on Avery County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (360 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (329 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Avery County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Avery County — 84 documented sites across 4 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Toxics Release Inventory facility. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Avery County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Avery County
Closest first, across Avery County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- NC DOT - NEWLAND (DIV ELEVEN)Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- AVERY COUNTY QUIK SHOP, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- GRAGG SUNOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- BANNER'S CABINETS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- H & H BODY SHOPBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- TOWN OF NEWLANDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- NEWLAND EXXONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- SINGLETONS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- BANNERS CABINETS INCORPORATEDBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- CVS PHARMACY #5558Brownfields · 1.0 mi
- SOUTHERN BELL - NWLDNCCEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- NEWLAND QUALITY MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Avery County'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 Avery County.
Total Sites
84
across Avery County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
across Avery County
Severity Distribution
across Avery County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Avery County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 72 sites across Avery County. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
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 Avery County
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 Avery County average
Your land is one point inside Avery County
Everything above resolves to Avery County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 158K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Avery County Average
Avery County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Avery County
- ●One soil character for all of Avery County
- ●Frost dates read at Avery County's scale: Apr 20 to Oct 24
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Avery County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Avery County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Avery County, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Avery County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Avery County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Avery County average
How we know this about Avery County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Avery County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Avery County
When does frost risk typically end in Avery County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Avery County typically lands around Apr 20, 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 May 11.
How long is the growing season in Avery County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Avery County sees about 187 frost-free days — roughly Apr 20 through Oct 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 11 to Oct 10, about 152 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Avery County?
The federal record around Avery County shows 84 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (72), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 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.
Everything above is measured at Avery County's scale — its 6b band and its 187-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Avery County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads North Carolina's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Avery County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Avery County's own scale — its own ~187-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 84 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Avery County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Avery County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~187-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Avery CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 84 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Avery County's boundary and the 158,296 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~187-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Avery County sitting wholly inside the Blue RidgeUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Avery County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Avery County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every North Carolina grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom North Carolina
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Avery County — the ~187 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Avery County's 158,296 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 84 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Avery Countyread your own land →