Roxobel, North Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
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 Roxobel, 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 Roxobel 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 Roxobel — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Roxobel — the short answer
Roxobel, North Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 249 days between hard freezes, across 668 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~249
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 668 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 Roxobel's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Roxobel's 249-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Roxobel
Each reading below is measured for Roxobel itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredRoxobel 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
Winter hardiness
MeasuredRoxobel 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 Roxobel is in
Roxobel sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Roxobel's own centroid rather than borrowed from Bertie County.
What Grows in Roxobel
Every plant below cleared Roxobel's own zone 8a and its 249-day season. Each card opens that plant's North Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Roxobel?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. 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. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Roxobel
Spotted lanternfly documented 31 miles from Roxobel, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Roxobel
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Roxobel. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- RUDY PLACE AMOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- ROXOBEL TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- MINTON STORE TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- BRYANT BROS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- SOUTHERN BELL-GLC 2C128Underground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- CHERRY PLACEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- KELFORD COCA COLAUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- PEELE'S GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- KELFORD SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- BE-080 NC-154 ROXOBEL RS SURFICIALNitrate · 3.9 mi
- PERDUE FOODS LLC - LEWISTONToxics Release Inventory · 4.2 mi
- VALLEY PROTEINS PROCESSING PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 4.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Roxobel'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 Roxobel.
Total Sites
112
within ~10 miles of Roxobel
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Roxobel
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Roxobel
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Roxobel, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 79 sites within ~10 miles of Roxobel. 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 Roxobel
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 Roxobel average
Your land is one point inside Roxobel
Everything above resolves to Roxobel as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 668 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 Roxobel Average
Roxobel Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Roxobel
- ●One soil character for all of Roxobel
- ●Frost dates read at Roxobel's scale: Mar 17 to Nov 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Roxobel's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Roxobel
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Roxobel, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Roxobel averages can't show:
We read public map data around Roxobel — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Roxobel average
How we know this about Roxobel
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 Roxobel’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 Roxobel
When does frost risk typically end in Roxobel?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Roxobel 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.
When is the first frost in Roxobel?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Roxobel typically arrives around Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 7, so the watching starts about Oct 22 — about 249 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Roxobel?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Roxobel 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 Roxobel?
The federal record around Roxobel shows 112 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (79), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Roxobel?
From about Oct 22 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 21 (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 21. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Roxobel's scale — its 8a band and its 249-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Roxobel'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 Roxobel’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Roxobel's own scale — its own ~249-day season between 28°F freezes, the 668 acres it covers and 112 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Roxobel's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Roxobel's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 17 and Nov 21 and the ~249-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 112 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Roxobel, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Roxobel's boundary and the 668 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 ecoregion at Roxobel's own centroid, the Middle Atlantic Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Roxobellydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Roxobel's 668 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Bertie County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Bertie 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 Bertie County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Roxobel's 668 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Roxobel you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 668 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 Roxobel-wide figureread your own land →
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