Chesterfield County, in Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Chesterfield County lies within the Piedmont — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Chesterfield County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Chesterfield County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Chesterfield County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Chesterfield County — the short answer
Chesterfield County, Virginia: USDA zone 7b, about 224 days between hard freezes, across 271K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~224
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 271K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 Chesterfield County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Chesterfield County's 224-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Chesterfield County
Across a year, Chesterfield County accumulates about 4,079 growing degree days above 50°F, about 345 more than the middle Virginia county — ahead of 89 of Virginia’s 133 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Winter banks about 2,068 hours below 45°F, 370 fewer than the Virginia middle of 2,438. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Chesterfield County
Across Chesterfield County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Appling, Creedmoor, and Bourne are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.6–5.5, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
40%
Hydric soils
17%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Chesterfield County
The USDA soil survey maps 50% of Chesterfield County as well drained — but another 46% drains differently: 24% moderately well drained, 14% poorly drained.
Appling is the most extensive named soil at 15% of mapped acres, then Creedmoor (10%) and Bourne (7%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Chesterfield County
Each reading below is measured for Chesterfield County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Chesterfield County are well drained, in hydrologic group B — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Chesterfield County runs about pH 4.6–5.5, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 17% of Chesterfield County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredChesterfield County runs about 224 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
The kind of country Chesterfield County is in
Chesterfield County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Piedmont (68%) and Southeastern Plains (32%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Chesterfield County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Chesterfield County's own USDA zone 7b and its own 224-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Virginia profile.
Is it too late to plant in Chesterfield County?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 7 — 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 Chesterfield County
Spotted lanternfly documented 8 miles from Chesterfield County, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle15 documented records
- monarch butterfly124 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Chesterfield County
USGS estimates 4,522 lb of Glyphosate on Chesterfield County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (1,629 lb) and Metolachlor-s (1,270 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Chesterfield County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Chesterfield County — 987 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 6 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Chesterfield County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Chesterfield County
Closest first, across Chesterfield County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- VDCR - Pocahontas State ParkUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- VDOT - Beach Area HeadquatersUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- VDOT BEACH AREA HEADQUARTERSBrownfields · 1.5 mi
- SpencersUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- VDF - CHESTERFIELD COUNTY OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- VDOT - POCAHONTAS AREA HEADQUARTERSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- GEORGE KCRAGETUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- CENTRAL VIRGINIA CORRECTIONAL UNIT # 13Brownfields · 2.2 mi
- VDOT POCAHONTAS AREA HDQBrownfields · 2.2 mi
- CHESTERFIELD WOMENS DIVERSION CENTERBrownfields · 2.2 mi
- Orange MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- CHESTERFIELD COMMUNITY CORR UNITUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Chesterfield County'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 Chesterfield County.
Sources Checked
across Chesterfield County
Severity Distribution
across Chesterfield County
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •TRI facilities report what they release. Check the wind — downwind beds catch more of it.
Check your specific parcel in Chesterfield County
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 Chesterfield County average
Your land is one point inside Chesterfield County
Everything above resolves to Chesterfield County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 271K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Chesterfield County Average
Chesterfield County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Chesterfield County
- ●One soil character for all of Chesterfield County
- ●Frost dates read at Chesterfield County's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Chesterfield County's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Chesterfield County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Chesterfield County, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Chesterfield County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Chesterfield County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Chesterfield County average
How we know this about Chesterfield County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Chesterfield County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Chesterfield County
When does frost risk typically end in Chesterfield County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Chesterfield County typically lands around Mar 28, 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 18.
How long is the growing season in Chesterfield County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Chesterfield County sees about 224 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Oct 24, about 189 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Chesterfield County?
The federal record around Chesterfield County is a meaningful one — 987 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (536), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.1 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.
Everything above is measured at Chesterfield County's scale — its 7b band and its 224-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Chesterfield County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Virginia's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Chesterfield County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Chesterfield County's own scale — its own ~224-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 987 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Chesterfield County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Chesterfield County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~224-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Chesterfield CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 987 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.1 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Chesterfield County's boundary and the 271,046 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~224-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Chesterfield County spans, Piedmont the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Chesterfield County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Chesterfield County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Virginia grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Virginia
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Chesterfield County — the ~224 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Chesterfield County's 271,046 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 987 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Chesterfield Countyread your own land →