Taylortown, 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.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Taylortown, 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 Taylortown 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 Taylortown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Taylortown — the short answer
Taylortown, North Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 247 days between hard freezes, across 863 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 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~247
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 863 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 Taylortown's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Taylortown's 247-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Taylortown
Each reading below is measured for Taylortown itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredTaylortown runs about 247 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
MeasuredTaylortown 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 Taylortown is in
Taylortown sits in the Southeastern Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Taylortown's own centroid rather than borrowed from Moore County.
What Grows in Taylortown
Every plant below cleared Taylortown's own zone 8a and its 247-day season. Each card opens that plant's North Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Taylortown?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. 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 18 — 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 Taylortown
Survey cells within 31 miles of Taylortown checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 58 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Taylortown
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Taylortown. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- STANLEY FURNITUREUnderground Storage Tanks · 200 ft
- MCDONALD BROS LUMBER CO.Underground Storage Tanks · 200 ft
- WALGREENS 17067Brownfields · 0.7 mi
- MACS FOOD STORE 1Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- CIRCLE K 2723841Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- PINEHURST HARDWARE & SUPPLYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- NCDSCA DC630001 (PINEHURST HOTEL CLEANERS)Brownfields · 1.6 mi
- MANOR CARE NURSING CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- SHORT STOP 77Underground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- CENTRAL MAINTENANCEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- VILLAGE FILLIN' STATION LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- CLARK CHEVROLET-CADILLACUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Taylortown'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 Taylortown.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Taylortown
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Taylortown
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Taylortown, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Taylortown — Superfund (7 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (188 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Taylortown
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 Taylortown average
Your land is one point inside Taylortown
Everything above resolves to Taylortown as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 863 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 Taylortown Average
Taylortown Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Taylortown
- ●One soil character for all of Taylortown
- ●Frost dates read at Taylortown's scale: Mar 16 to Nov 18
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Taylortown's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Taylortown
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Taylortown, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Taylortown averages can't show:
We read public map data around Taylortown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Taylortown average
How we know this about Taylortown
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 Taylortown’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 Taylortown
When does frost risk typically end in Taylortown?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Taylortown 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 Taylortown?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Taylortown typically arrives around Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 4, so the watching starts about Oct 19 — about 247 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Taylortown?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Taylortown sees about 247 frost-free days — roughly Mar 16 through Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 6 to Nov 4, about 212 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Taylortown?
The federal record around Taylortown runs heavier than most — 279 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (188), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Taylortown?
From about Oct 19 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 18 (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 18. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Taylortown's scale — its 8a band and its 247-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Taylortown'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 Taylortown’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Taylortown's own scale — its own ~247-day season between 28°F freezes, the 863 acres it covers and 279 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Taylortown's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Taylortown's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 16 and Nov 18 and the ~247-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 279 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Taylortown, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Taylortown's boundary and the 863 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~247-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Taylortown's own centroid, the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Taylortown 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 Taylortown's 863 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Moore County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Moore 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 Moore County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Taylortown's 863 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Taylortown you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 863 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Taylortown-wide figureread your own land →
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