Ruffin, North Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Ruffin, 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 Ruffin 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 Ruffin — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Ruffin — the short answer
Ruffin, North Carolina: USDA zone 7b, about 232 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~232
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 7b is Ruffin's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Ruffin's 232-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Ruffin
Each reading below is measured for Ruffin itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredRuffin runs about 232 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
MeasuredRuffin sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Ruffin is in
Ruffin sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Ruffin's own centroid rather than borrowed from Rockingham County.
What Grows in Ruffin
Every plant below cleared Ruffin's own zone 7b and its 232-day season. Each card opens that plant's North Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Ruffin?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 23 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 10 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Ruffin
Survey cells within 31 miles of Ruffin 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.
What's on the federal record near Ruffin
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Ruffin. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- RUFFIN GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- BOYD'S STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- U.S. ARMY, CORPS OF ENGINEERSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- CAROLINA COMMERCIAL HEAT TREATUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
- BUCKY'S GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
- DON PORTER'S LAZY NUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- SMITHS CORNER STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- KROSSROADS XPRESSUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- KROSSROAD XPRESSUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- BUDDY'S TRUCK STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- PELHAM MINI MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- STAR GASUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Ruffin'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 Ruffin.
Total Sites
256
within ~10 miles of Ruffin
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Ruffin
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Ruffin
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Ruffin, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 190 sites within ~10 miles of Ruffin. 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 Ruffin
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 Ruffin average
Your land is one point inside Ruffin
Everything above resolves to Ruffin as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Ruffin Average
Ruffin Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Ruffin
- ●One soil character for all of Ruffin
- ●Frost dates read at Ruffin's scale: Mar 23 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Ruffin's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Ruffin
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Ruffin, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Ruffin averages can't show:
We read public map data around Ruffin — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Ruffin average
How we know this about Ruffin
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 Ruffin’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 Ruffin
When does frost risk typically end in Ruffin?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Ruffin typically lands around Mar 23, 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 13.
When is the first frost in Ruffin?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Ruffin typically arrives around Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 27, so the watching starts about Oct 11 — about 232 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Ruffin?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Ruffin sees about 232 frost-free days — roughly Mar 23 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 13 to Oct 27, about 197 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Ruffin?
The federal record around Ruffin is a meaningful one — 256 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (190), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.9 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 Ruffin?
From about Oct 11 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 10 (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 10. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Ruffin's scale — its 7b band and its 232-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Ruffin'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 Ruffin’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Ruffin's own scale — its own ~232-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,914 acres it covers and 256 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Ruffin's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Ruffin's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 23 and Nov 10 and the ~232-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 256 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Ruffin, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.9 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Ruffin's boundary and the 2,914 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~232-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Ruffin's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Ruffin 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 Ruffin's 2,914 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Rockingham County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Rockingham 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 Rockingham County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Ruffin's 2,914 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Ruffin you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,914 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.9 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 Ruffin-wide figureread your own land →
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