Keowee Key, South Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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 Keowee Key, 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 Keowee Key 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 Keowee Key — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Keowee Key — the short answer
Keowee Key, South Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 250 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~250
- 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 Keowee Key's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Keowee Key's 250-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Keowee Key
Each reading below is measured for Keowee Key itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredKeowee Key runs about 250 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
MeasuredKeowee Key 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 Keowee Key is in
Keowee Key sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Keowee Key's own centroid rather than borrowed from Oconee County.
What Grows in Keowee Key
Every plant below cleared Keowee Key's own zone 8a and its 250-day season. Each card opens that plant's South Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Keowee Key?
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 15; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 15 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 20 — 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 Keowee Key
Spotted lanternfly documented 28 miles from Keowee Key, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Keowee Key
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Keowee Key. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- LAKE KEOWEE DEV CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- KEY MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- SIMS SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- WINCHESTER BROSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- KEOWEE KEY GOLF COURSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- DUKE ENERGY OCONEE NUCLEAR STATIONBrownfields · 1.9 mi
- DUKE ENERGY CORPORATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- DUKE ENERGY CAROLINAS LLC OCONEE NUCLEARUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- GAP HILL LANDING CAMPGROUNDUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- JOHNS MARINE SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- CMD SD REGIONAL FACILITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- GREENVILLE WATER ADKINS PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Keowee Key'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 Keowee Key.
Total Sites
285
within ~10 miles of Keowee Key
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
13 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Keowee Key
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Keowee Key
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Keowee Key, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 197 sites within ~10 miles of Keowee Key. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Keowee Key
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 Keowee Key average
Your land is one point inside Keowee Key
Everything above resolves to Keowee Key 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 Keowee Key Average
Keowee Key Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Keowee Key
- ●One soil character for all of Keowee Key
- ●Frost dates read at Keowee Key's scale: Mar 15 to Nov 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Keowee Key's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Keowee Key
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Keowee Key, South Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Keowee Key averages can't show:
We read public map data around Keowee Key — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Keowee Key average
How we know this about Keowee Key
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 Keowee Key’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 Keowee Key
When does frost risk typically end in Keowee Key?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Keowee Key typically lands around Mar 15, 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 5.
When is the first frost in Keowee Key?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Keowee Key typically arrives around Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 6, so the watching starts about Oct 21 — about 250 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Keowee Key?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Keowee Key sees about 250 frost-free days — roughly Mar 15 through Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 5 to Nov 6, about 215 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Keowee Key?
The federal record around Keowee Key is a meaningful one — 285 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (197), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Keowee Key?
From about Oct 21 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 20 (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 20. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Keowee Key's scale — its 8a band and its 250-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Keowee Key'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 Keowee Key’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Keowee Key's own scale — its own ~250-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,220 acres it covers and 285 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Keowee Key's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Keowee Key's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 15 and Nov 20 and the ~250-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 285 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Keowee Key, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Keowee Key's boundary and the 2,220 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~250-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Keowee Key's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Keowee Keylydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Keowee Key's 2,220 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Oconee County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Oconee 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 Oconee County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Keowee Key's 2,220 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Keowee Key you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,220 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Keowee Key-wide figureread your own land →