Pikeville, 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.
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 Pikeville, 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 Pikeville 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 Pikeville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Pikeville — the short answer
Pikeville, North Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 257 days between hard freezes, across 483 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~257
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 483 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 Pikeville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pikeville's 257-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Pikeville
Each reading below is measured for Pikeville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPikeville 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
MeasuredPikeville 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 Pikeville is in
Pikeville sits in the Southeastern Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Pikeville's own centroid rather than borrowed from Wayne County.
What Grows in Pikeville
Every plant below cleared Pikeville'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 Pikeville?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 25 — 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 Pikeville
Survey cells within 31 miles of Pikeville checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 42 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Pikeville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Pikeville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- WESTERN AUTO ASSOCIATE STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- BAKER GAS & AUTO SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- PIKEVILLE QUICK PICUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- PIKEVILLE TIRE & GASUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- PATES SERVICE STATION&GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- ACME UNITED CORPORATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- MAMMOTH SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- WAYNE COMM COLLEGE AVIATIONBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- B.P. SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- LENOIR MEMORIAL HOSPITAL INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- WA-185 LU-13Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- WA-320 LU-13A NEAR PIKEVILLENitrate · 1.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pikeville'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 Pikeville.
Total Sites
533
within ~10 miles of Pikeville
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Pikeville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Pikeville
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
Check your specific parcel in Pikeville
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 Pikeville average
Your land is one point inside Pikeville
Everything above resolves to Pikeville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 483 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 Pikeville Average
Pikeville Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Pikeville
- ●One soil character for all of Pikeville
- ●Frost dates read at Pikeville's scale: Mar 13 to Nov 25
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pikeville's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Pikeville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pikeville, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pikeville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pikeville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pikeville average
How we know this about Pikeville
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 Pikeville’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 Pikeville
When does frost risk typically end in Pikeville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pikeville typically lands around Mar 13, 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 3.
When is the first frost in Pikeville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Pikeville typically arrives around Nov 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 11, so the watching starts about Oct 26 — about 257 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Pikeville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pikeville sees about 257 frost-free days — roughly Mar 13 through Nov 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 3 to Nov 11, about 222 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Pikeville?
The federal record around Pikeville is a meaningful one — 533 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (324), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Pikeville?
From about Oct 26 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 25 (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 25. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Pikeville's scale — its 8a band and its 257-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pikeville'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 Pikeville’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Pikeville's own scale — its own ~257-day season between 28°F freezes, the 483 acres it covers and 533 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pikeville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pikeville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 13 and Nov 25 and the ~257-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 533 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Pikeville, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Pikeville's boundary and the 483 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 Pikeville's own centroid, the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Pikeville 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 Pikeville's 483 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Wayne County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Wayne 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 Wayne County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Pikeville's 483 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Pikeville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 483 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Pikeville-wide figureread your own land →