Tega Cay, 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.
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 Tega Cay, 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 Tega Cay 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 Tega Cay — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Tega Cay — the short answer
Tega Cay, South Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 250 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of city.
- 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 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~250
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 3K 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 Tega Cay's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Tega Cay's 250-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Tega Cay
Each reading below is measured for Tega Cay itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredTega Cay 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
MeasuredTega Cay 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 Tega Cay is in
Tega Cay sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Tega Cay's own centroid rather than borrowed from York County.
What Grows in Tega Cay
Every plant below cleared Tega Cay'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 Tega Cay?
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 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 21 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Tega Cay
Survey cells within 31 miles of Tega Cay checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 33 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Tega Cay
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Tega Cay. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HOME OF ELLIOTT S CLOSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- TEGA CAY FIRE DEPTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- TEGA CAY RECREATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- NIVENS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- WALMART SUPERCENTER STORE 3733Brownfields · 1.1 mi
- HIDDEN HARBOR MARINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- DUKE ENERGY/WYLIE HYDRO STABrownfields · 1.2 mi
- BIG HWY 160 AUTO PARTSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- CIRCLE K 2723987Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- SMITHS PAINT AND BODY SHOPBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- AULL TECHNOLOGYBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- FORT MILL TELEPHONE COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Tega Cay'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 Tega Cay.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Tega Cay
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Tega Cay
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Tega Cay, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 133 sites within ~10 miles of Tega Cay. 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.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Tega Cay
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 Tega Cay average
Your land is one point inside Tega Cay
Everything above resolves to Tega Cay as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 city 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 Tega Cay Average
Tega Cay Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Tega Cay
- ●One soil character for all of Tega Cay
- ●Frost dates read at Tega Cay's scale: Mar 16 to Nov 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Tega Cay's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Tega Cay
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Tega Cay, South Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Tega Cay averages can't show:
We read public map data around Tega Cay — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Tega Cay average
How we know this about Tega Cay
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Tega Cay’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Tega Cay
When does frost risk typically end in Tega Cay?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Tega Cay 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 Tega Cay?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Tega Cay typically arrives around Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 7, so the watching starts about Oct 22 — about 250 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Tega Cay?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Tega Cay sees about 250 frost-free days — roughly Mar 16 through Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 6 to Nov 7, about 215 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Tega Cay?
The federal record around Tega Cay is a meaningful one — 1,052 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (550), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Tega Cay?
From about Oct 22 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 21 (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 21. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Tega Cay's scale — its 8a band and its 250-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Tega Cay'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 Tega Cay’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Tega Cay's own scale — its own ~250-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,925 acres it covers and 1,052 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Tega Cay's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Tega Cay's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 16 and Nov 21 and the ~250-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,052 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Tega Cay, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Tega Cay's boundary and the 2,925 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 Tega Cay's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Tega Cay 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 Tega Cay's 2,925 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 Tega Cay's 2,925 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Tega Cay you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,925 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Tega Cay-wide figureread your own land →
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