Sharon, South Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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 Sharon, 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 Sharon 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 Sharon — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Sharon — the short answer
Sharon, South Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 244 days between hard freezes, across 838 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 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~244
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 838 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 Sharon's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Sharon's 244-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Sharon
Each reading below is measured for Sharon itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSharon runs about 244 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
MeasuredSharon 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 Sharon is in
Sharon sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Sharon's own centroid rather than borrowed from York County.
What Grows in Sharon
Every plant below cleared Sharon's own zone 8a and its 244-day season. Each card opens that plant's South Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Sharon?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. 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 16 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Sharon
Survey cells within 31 miles of Sharon checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 48 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Sharon
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Sharon. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SHARON GRILLUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- WINN EXPRESSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- BROWNIES SUPER SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- GILCHRISTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- YK- 44Nitrate · 1800 ft
- YK- 140Nitrate · 2000 ft
- Brown MineMining · 0.5 mi
- MARION COMERSUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- HICKSON CORPORATIONToxics Release Inventory · 4.1 mi
- HICKSON CORPORATIONBrownfields · 4.1 mi
- CATAWBA TIMBER COUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- C&M CONVENIENCE STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Sharon'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 Sharon.
Total Sites
151
within ~10 miles of Sharon
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Sharon
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Sharon
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Sharon, Mining runs higher than the national average — 26 sites within ~10 miles of Sharon. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Sharon
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 Sharon average
Your land is one point inside Sharon
Everything above resolves to Sharon as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 838 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 Sharon Average
Sharon Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Sharon
- ●One soil character for all of Sharon
- ●Frost dates read at Sharon's scale: Mar 17 to Nov 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Sharon's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Sharon
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Sharon, South Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Sharon averages can't show:
We read public map data around Sharon — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Sharon average
How we know this about Sharon
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 Sharon’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 Sharon
When does frost risk typically end in Sharon?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Sharon 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 Sharon?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Sharon typically arrives around Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 2, so the watching starts about Oct 17 — about 244 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Sharon?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Sharon sees about 244 frost-free days — roughly Mar 17 through Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 7 to Nov 2, about 209 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Sharon?
The federal record around Sharon runs heavier than most — 151 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (85), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles 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 Sharon?
From about Oct 17 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 16 (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 16. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Sharon's scale — its 8a band and its 244-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Sharon'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 Sharon’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Sharon's own scale — its own ~244-day season between 28°F freezes, the 838 acres it covers and 151 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Sharon's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Sharon's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 17 and Nov 16 and the ~244-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 151 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Sharon, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Sharon's boundary and the 838 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~244-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Sharon's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Sharon 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 Sharon's 838 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 Sharon's 838 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Sharon you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 838 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 Sharon-wide figureread your own land →
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