India Hook, South 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.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in India Hook, 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 India Hook 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 India Hook — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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India Hook — the short answer
India Hook, South Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 246 days between hard freezes, across 2K 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 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~246
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 India Hook's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against India Hook's 246-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in India Hook
Each reading below is measured for India Hook itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredIndia Hook runs about 246 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
MeasuredIndia Hook 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 India Hook is in
India Hook sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at India Hook's own centroid rather than borrowed from York County.
What Grows in India Hook
Every plant below cleared India Hook's own zone 8a and its 246-day season. Each card opens that plant's South Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in India Hook?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. 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 18 — 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 India Hook
Survey cells within 31 miles of India Hook checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 35 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near India Hook
Closest first, within ~10 miles of India Hook. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- RIVERSTOP FOOD MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- GENERAL FABRICATORS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- J A FEWELL ESTATE PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- LAKE WYLIE RAW WATER PUMP STATIONBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- DUKE ENERGY/WYLIE HYDRO STABrownfields · 1.2 mi
- HIDDEN HARBOR MARINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- LAKE CLUB MARINA LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- TEGA CAY MARINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- TEGA CAY RECREATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- HOME OF ELLIOTT S CLOSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- CL&D GRAPHICSBrownfields · 2.2 mi
- CIRTEC MEDICALBrownfields · 2.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from India Hook'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 India Hook.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of India Hook
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of India Hook
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around India Hook, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 126 sites within ~10 miles of India Hook. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in India Hook
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 India Hook average
Your land is one point inside India Hook
Everything above resolves to India Hook as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 India Hook Average
India Hook Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across India Hook
- ●One soil character for all of India Hook
- ●Frost dates read at India Hook's scale: Mar 17 to Nov 18
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not India Hook's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in India Hook
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in India Hook, South Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that India Hook averages can't show:
We read public map data around India Hook — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the India Hook average
How we know this about India Hook
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 India Hook’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 India Hook
When does frost risk typically end in India Hook?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in India Hook 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 India Hook?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in India Hook 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 246 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in India Hook?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, India Hook sees about 246 frost-free days — roughly Mar 17 through Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 7 to Nov 4, about 211 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in India Hook?
The federal record around India Hook is a meaningful one — 950 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (496), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 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 India Hook?
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 India Hook's scale — its 8a band and its 246-day season. Your yard writes its own version of India Hook'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 India Hook’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at India Hook's own scale — its own ~246-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,687 acres it covers and 950 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- India Hook's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- India Hook's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 17 and Nov 18 and the ~246-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 950 documented contamination sites on the federal record near India Hook, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- India Hook's boundary and the 1,687 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~246-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at India Hook's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around India Hook 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 India Hook's 1,687 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom York County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom York County
- The growing challenges every South Carolina grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom South Carolina
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom York County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among India Hook's 1,687 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of India Hook you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,687 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 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 India Hook-wide figureread your own land →
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