Nash County, in North Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Expect cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Nash County lies within the North Carolina Inner Coastal Plain (Eastern NC row-crop belt) — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Nash County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Nash 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 Nash County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Nash County — the short answer
Nash County, North Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 249 days between hard freezes, across 346K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~249
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 346K 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 8a is Nash County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Nash County's 249-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Nash County
Across a year, Nash County accumulates about 4,483 growing degree days above 50°F, about 93 more than the middle North Carolina county — ahead of 53 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.
Winter banks about 1,726 hours below 45°F, 37 fewer than the North Carolina middle of 1,763. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Nash County
Across Nash County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Norfolk, Georgeville, and Rains are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a loamy sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.7–5.5, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
52%
Hydric soils
29%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Nash County
The USDA soil survey maps 65% of Nash County as well drained — but another 34% drains differently: 27% poorly drained, 7% moderately well drained.
Norfolk is the most extensive named soil at 24% of mapped acres, then Georgeville (19%) and Rains (14%).
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 Nash County
Each reading below is measured for Nash 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 Nash 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 Nash County runs about pH 4.7–5.5, 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
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 29% of Nash County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredNash County runs about 249 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
The kind of country Nash County is in
Nash County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Southeastern Plains (68%) and Piedmont (32%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Nash County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Nash County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 249-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 Nash County?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 17; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 17 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 21 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Nash County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Nash County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 34 miles off. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Nash County
USGS estimates 97,347 lb of Glyphosate on Nash County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (20,861 lb) and Acetochlor (13,961 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 Nash County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Nash County — 637 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Nash County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Nash County
Closest first, across Nash County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- AMERICAN COMPUTER DEVELOPMENT INCToxics Release Inventory · 1800 ft
- TRADE MART 18 (FAC NAME REUSED)Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- PERDUE NASHVILLE FEED MILLToxics Release Inventory · 0.7 mi
- TOWN OF NASHVILLE (SHOP)Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- NASHVILLE BUILDING SUPPLY CO.Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- NA-086 NASHVILLE MUNNitrate · 0.9 mi
- FUEL DOC 6Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- BROWERS CARPETUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- NASHVILLE WELDING-MACHINE WORKSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- LITTLE RIVER CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- STRICKLAND EQUIPMENT CO.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- LEE MOORE'S GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Nash 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 Nash County.
Total Sites
637
across Nash County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Nash County
Severity Distribution
across Nash County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Nash County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 479 sites across Nash 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 Nash 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 Nash County average
Your land is one point inside Nash County
Everything above resolves to Nash County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 346K 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 Nash County Average
Nash County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Nash County
- ●One soil character for all of Nash County
- ●Frost dates read at Nash County's scale: Mar 17 to Nov 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Nash County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Nash County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Nash County, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Nash County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Nash County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Nash County average
How we know this about Nash 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 Nash County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Nash County
When does frost risk typically end in Nash County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Nash County typically lands around Mar 17, 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 7.
How long is the growing season in Nash County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Nash County sees about 249 frost-free days — roughly Mar 17 through Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 7 to Nov 7, about 214 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Nash County?
The federal record around Nash County is a meaningful one — 637 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (479), the nearest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.3 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.
Everything above is measured at Nash County's scale — its 8a band and its 249-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Nash 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 Nash County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Nash County's own scale — its own ~249-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 637 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Nash County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Nash County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~249-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Nash CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 637 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Nash County's boundary and the 345,884 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~249-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Nash County spans, Southeastern Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Nash County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Nash 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 Nash County — the ~249 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 Nash County's 345,884 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 637 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 Nash Countyread your own land →