Pumpkin Center, 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.
On paper, cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Pumpkin Center, 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 Pumpkin Center 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 Pumpkin Center — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Pumpkin Center — the short answer
Pumpkin Center, North Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 256 days between hard freezes, across 811 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 14
- Onslow County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 25
- Onslow County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~256
- Onslow County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Town area
- 811 acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. No 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid, so the hard-freeze dates are Onslow County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 8a is Pumpkin Center's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pumpkin Center's 256-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Pumpkin Center
Each reading below is measured for Pumpkin Center itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsPumpkin Center runs about 256 days between hard freezes (read from Onslow County, the closest normal to Pumpkin Center) — 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
MeasuredPumpkin Center 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 Pumpkin Center is in
Pumpkin Center sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Pumpkin Center's own centroid rather than borrowed from Onslow County.
What Grows in Pumpkin Center
Every plant below cleared Pumpkin Center's own zone 8a and its 256-day season. Each card opens that plant's North Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Pumpkin Center?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. 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 25 — 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 Pumpkin Center
Survey cells within 31 miles of Pumpkin Center checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 48 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Pumpkin Center
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Pumpkin Center. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PARKER'S AUTO SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- DURWOOD HUMPHREY CONST CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- P & G BODY SHOPBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- CIRCLE K 2708214Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- SCOTCHMAN 87Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- CIRCLE K 2723125Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- WEYERHAEUSER COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- WEYERHAUSER COToxics Release Inventory · 0.8 mi
- PUMPKIN CENTER CHEVRONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- COASTAL MOTORS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- SALLY BEAUTY SUPPLY #557Brownfields · 1.0 mi
- CALIBER COLLISION CTR-BRYNN MARRBrownfields · 1.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pumpkin Center'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 Pumpkin Center.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Pumpkin Center
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Pumpkin Center
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Pumpkin Center, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 247 sites within ~10 miles of Pumpkin Center. 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 Pumpkin Center
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 Pumpkin Center average
Your land is one point inside Pumpkin Center
Everything above resolves to Pumpkin Center as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 811 acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Onslow County’s record because no 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid. 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 Pumpkin Center Average
Pumpkin Center Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Pumpkin Center
- ●One soil character for all of Pumpkin Center
- ●Frost dates read at Pumpkin Center's scale: Mar 14 to Nov 25
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pumpkin Center's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Pumpkin Center
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pumpkin Center, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pumpkin Center averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pumpkin Center — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pumpkin Center average
How we know this about Pumpkin Center
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 Onslow County’s record, because none resolves here; 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 Pumpkin Center
When does frost risk typically end in Pumpkin Center?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pumpkin Center 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 Pumpkin Center?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Pumpkin Center 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 256 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Pumpkin Center?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pumpkin Center sees about 256 frost-free days — roughly Mar 14 through Nov 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 4 to Nov 11, about 221 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Pumpkin Center?
The federal record around Pumpkin Center is a meaningful one — 395 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (247), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Pumpkin Center?
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 Pumpkin Center's scale — its 8a band and its 256-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pumpkin Center'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 Pumpkin Center’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Pumpkin Center's own scale — the 811 acres it covers and 395 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pumpkin Center's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- 395 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Pumpkin Center, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Pumpkin Center's boundary and the 811 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~256-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Pumpkin Center's own centroid, the Middle Atlantic Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Pumpkin Center checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Pumpkin Center has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Onslow County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Pumpkin Center's 811 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Onslow County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Onslow 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 Onslow County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Pumpkin Center's 811 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Pumpkin Center you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 811 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Pumpkin Center-wide figureread your own land →
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