Mount Gilead, North Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
These conditions suit cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Mount Gilead, 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 Mount Gilead 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 Mount Gilead — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Mount Gilead — the short answer
Mount Gilead, North Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 248 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~248
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 Mount Gilead's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Mount Gilead's 248-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Mount Gilead
Each reading below is measured for Mount Gilead itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMount Gilead runs about 248 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
MeasuredMount Gilead 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 Mount Gilead is in
Mount Gilead sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Mount Gilead's own centroid rather than borrowed from Montgomery County.
What Grows in Mount Gilead
Every plant below cleared Mount Gilead's own zone 8a and its 248-day season. Each card opens that plant's North Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Mount Gilead?
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 16; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 16 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 19 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Mount Gilead
Survey cells within 31 miles of Mount Gilead 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 Mount Gilead
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Mount Gilead. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- JAMES RIVER EQUIPMENT NC LLCBrownfields · 850 ft
- RUSSELL HARVILLE HOSIERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- WILDERS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- C'SUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- GILEAD MF. CO.Underground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- US POST OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- TROY WILDLIFE DEPOTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- R.D. BLAKE JR. STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- SURAJ MALSINGHUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- JAN'S OUTLETUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- ROY THOMPSONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- BOWLES SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Mount Gilead'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 Mount Gilead.
Total Sites
111
within ~10 miles of Mount Gilead
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
11 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Mount Gilead
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Mount Gilead
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Mount Gilead, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Mount Gilead — Toxics Release Inventory (11 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (79 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Mount Gilead
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 Mount Gilead average
Your land is one point inside Mount Gilead
Everything above resolves to Mount Gilead as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Mount Gilead Average
Mount Gilead Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Mount Gilead
- ●One soil character for all of Mount Gilead
- ●Frost dates read at Mount Gilead's scale: Mar 16 to Nov 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Mount Gilead's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Mount Gilead
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Mount Gilead, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Mount Gilead averages can't show:
We read public map data around Mount Gilead — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mount Gilead average
How we know this about Mount Gilead
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 Mount Gilead’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 Mount Gilead
When does frost risk typically end in Mount Gilead?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Mount Gilead typically lands around Mar 16, 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 6.
When is the first frost in Mount Gilead?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Mount Gilead typically arrives around Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 5, so the watching starts about Oct 20 — about 248 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Mount Gilead?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Mount Gilead sees about 248 frost-free days — roughly Mar 16 through Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 6 to Nov 5, about 213 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Mount Gilead?
The federal record around Mount Gilead shows 111 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (79), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.2 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Mount Gilead?
From about Oct 20 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 19 (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 19. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Mount Gilead's scale — its 8a band and its 248-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Mount Gilead'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 Mount Gilead’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Mount Gilead's own scale — its own ~248-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,234 acres it covers and 111 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Mount Gilead's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Mount Gilead's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 16 and Nov 19 and the ~248-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 111 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Mount Gilead, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Mount Gilead's boundary and the 2,234 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~248-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Mount Gilead's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Mount Gilead 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 Mount Gilead's 2,234 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Montgomery County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Montgomery 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 Montgomery County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Mount Gilead's 2,234 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Mount Gilead you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,234 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 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 Mount Gilead-wide figureread your own land →
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