St. Matthews, South Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Expect cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in St. Matthews, 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 St. Matthews 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 St. Matthews — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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St. Matthews — the short answer
St. Matthews, South Carolina: USDA zone 8b, about 278 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 26
- Calhoun County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 1
- Calhoun County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~278
- Calhoun County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Town area
- 1K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. No 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid, so the hard-freeze dates are Calhoun County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 8b is St. Matthews's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against St. Matthews's 278-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in St. Matthews
Each reading below is measured for St. Matthews itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsSt. Matthews runs about 278 days between hard freezes (read from Calhoun County, the closest normal to St. Matthews) — close to year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredSt. Matthews sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b.
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 St. Matthews is in
St. Matthews sits in the Southeastern Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at St. Matthews's own centroid rather than borrowed from Calhoun County.
What Grows in St. Matthews
Every plant below cleared St. Matthews's own zone 8b and its 278-day season. Each card opens that plant's South Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in St. Matthews?
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 Jan 29; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 1 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
Documented around St. Matthews
Survey cells within 31 miles of St. Matthews checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 127 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near St. Matthews
Closest first, within ~10 miles of St. Matthews. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- D H BANKS & SONUnderground Storage Tanks · 400 ft
- CITY DRY CLEANERSBrownfields · 400 ft
- SPIRES GULFUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- THORNTONS TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- LONGSTREET FARMS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- L B WANNAMAKER SEED COUnderground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- MIKES AUTO SERVICE CENTERBrownfields · 700 ft
- QUICK PANTRYUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- SMOKE OIL COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- HICKLIN MOTOR LINE INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- FAIREY MOTOR COMPANYBrownfields · 900 ft
- FAIREY MOTOR COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from St. Matthews'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 St. Matthews.
Total Sites
107
within ~10 miles of St. Matthews
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of St. Matthews
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of St. Matthews
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around St. Matthews, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of St. Matthews — Toxics Release Inventory (9 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (68 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in St. Matthews
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 St. Matthews average
Your land is one point inside St. Matthews
Everything above resolves to St. Matthews as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 1K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Calhoun County’s record because no 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid. 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 St. Matthews Average
St. Matthews Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across St. Matthews
- ●One soil character for all of St. Matthews
- ●Frost dates read at St. Matthews's scale: Feb 26 to Dec 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not St. Matthews's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in St. Matthews
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in St. Matthews, South Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that St. Matthews averages can't show:
We read public map data around St. Matthews — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the St. Matthews average
How we know this about St. Matthews
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 Calhoun County’s record, because none resolves here; 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 St. Matthews
When does frost risk typically end in St. Matthews?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in St. Matthews typically lands around Feb 26, 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 Mar 19.
When is the first frost in St. Matthews?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in St. Matthews typically arrives around Dec 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 17, so the watching starts about Nov 1 — about 278 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in St. Matthews?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, St. Matthews sees about 278 frost-free days — roughly Feb 26 through Dec 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 19 to Nov 17, about 243 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in St. Matthews?
The federal record around St. Matthews is a meaningful one — 107 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (68), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 St. Matthews?
From about Nov 1 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 Dec 1 (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 Dec 1. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at St. Matthews's scale — its 8b band and its 278-day season. Your yard writes its own version of St. Matthews'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 St. Matthews’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at St. Matthews's own scale — the 1,230 acres it covers and 107 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- St. Matthews's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- 107 documented contamination sites on the federal record near St. Matthews, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- St. Matthews's boundary and the 1,230 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~278-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at St. Matthews's own centroid, the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around St. Matthews checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — St. Matthews has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Calhoun County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so St. Matthews's 1,230 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Calhoun County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Calhoun 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 Calhoun County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among St. Matthews's 1,230 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of St. Matthews you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,230 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 St. Matthews-wide figureread your own land →
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