Amherst, Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Amherst, 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 Amherst 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 Amherst — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Amherst — the short answer
Amherst, Virginia: USDA zone 7b, about 220 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~220
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town 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 7b is Amherst's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Amherst's 220-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Amherst
Each reading below is measured for Amherst itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredAmherst runs about 220 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
MeasuredAmherst sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Amherst is in
Amherst sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Amherst's own centroid rather than borrowed from Amherst County.
What Grows in Amherst
Every plant below cleared Amherst's own zone 7b and its 220-day season. Each card opens that plant's Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Amherst?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 29 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 4 — 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 Amherst
Spotted lanternfly documented 1 miles from Amherst, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Amherst
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Amherst. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- GEORGE E. JONES & SONS; INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- CONTEL OF VIRGINIAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- Amherst Mini MartUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- AMHERST DRY CLEANERS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- CVS PHARMACY #7002Brownfields · 2300 ft
- Quik-E Food #11Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- Filling StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- VDOT Amherst Residency / VSP Area 20 OfficeUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- BROCKMAN CHEVROLET INCBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- BROCKMAN CHEVROLET INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- MAYS FARM SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- C B BRYANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Amherst'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 Amherst.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Amherst
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Amherst
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Amherst, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Amherst — Underground Storage Tanks (108 sites) and Mining (9 sites). 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.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Amherst
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 Amherst average
Your land is one point inside Amherst
Everything above resolves to Amherst 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 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 Amherst Average
Amherst Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Amherst
- ●One soil character for all of Amherst
- ●Frost dates read at Amherst's scale: Mar 29 to Nov 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Amherst's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Amherst
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Amherst, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Amherst averages can't show:
We read public map data around Amherst — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Amherst average
How we know this about Amherst
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 Amherst’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 Amherst
When does frost risk typically end in Amherst?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Amherst typically lands around Mar 29, 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 19.
When is the first frost in Amherst?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Amherst typically arrives around Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 21, so the watching starts about Oct 5 — about 220 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Amherst?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Amherst sees about 220 frost-free days — roughly Mar 29 through Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 19 to Oct 21, about 185 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Amherst?
The federal record around Amherst is a meaningful one — 143 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (108), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Amherst?
From about Oct 5 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 4 (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 4. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Amherst's scale — its 7b band and its 220-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Amherst'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 Amherst’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Amherst's own scale — its own ~220-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,137 acres it covers and 143 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Amherst's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Amherst's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 29 and Nov 4 and the ~220-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 143 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Amherst, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Amherst's boundary and the 3,137 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~220-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Amherst's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Amherstlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Amherst's 3,137 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Amherst County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Amherst County
- The growing challenges every Virginia grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Virginia
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Amherst County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Amherst's 3,137 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Amherst you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,137 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 Amherst-wide figureread your own land →