Gloucester County, in Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
The conditions favor cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Gloucester County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Gloucester 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 Gloucester County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Gloucester County — the short answer
Gloucester County, Virginia: USDA zone 8a, about 252 days between hard freezes, across 139K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~252
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 139K 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 8a is Gloucester County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Gloucester County's 252-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Gloucester County
Across a year, Gloucester County accumulates about 4,321 growing degree days above 50°F, about 587 more than the middle Virginia county — ahead of 116 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 1,846 hours below 45°F, 592 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 Gloucester County
Across Gloucester County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Meggett, Emporia, and Kempsville are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.8–5.3, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
33%
Hydric soils
32%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Gloucester County
The USDA soil survey maps 35% of Gloucester County as well drained — but another 52% drains differently: 24% poorly drained, 24% moderately well drained.
Meggett is the most extensive named soil at 9% of mapped acres, then Emporia (8%) and Kempsville (8%).
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 Gloucester County
Each reading below is measured for Gloucester 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 Gloucester County are well drained, in hydrologic group A — 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 Gloucester County runs about pH 4.8–5.3, 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 32% of Gloucester 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
MeasuredGloucester County runs about 252 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 Gloucester County is in
Gloucester County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Southeastern Plains (75%) and Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain (25%). 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 Gloucester County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Gloucester County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 252-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 Gloucester County?
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 18; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 18 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 25 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Gloucester County
Spotted lanternfly documented 12 miles from Gloucester County, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly3 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Gloucester County
USGS estimates 12,282 lb of Glyphosate on Gloucester County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (4,584 lb) and Acetochlor (2,800 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 Gloucester County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Gloucester County — 174 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Gloucester County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Gloucester County
Closest first, across Gloucester County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Andrews Funeral HomeUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- WALMART SUPERCENTER #1759Brownfields · 1300 ft
- HOME DEPOT STORE #4650Brownfields · 1400 ft
- Kroger Fuel Center 755Underground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Former Hudgins DealershipUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Gloucester AirportUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Southern States Gloucester ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Edgehill Shopping CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- VDOT (Former Village Star Texaco)Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Frederick H Hall PropertyUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Village AmocoUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Village ExxonUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Gloucester 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 Gloucester County.
Total Sites
174
across Gloucester County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Gloucester County
Severity Distribution
across Gloucester County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Gloucester County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 122 sites across Gloucester County. 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.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Gloucester 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 Gloucester County average
Your land is one point inside Gloucester County
Everything above resolves to Gloucester County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 139K 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 Gloucester County Average
Gloucester County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Gloucester County
- ●One soil character for all of Gloucester County
- ●Frost dates read at Gloucester County's scale: Mar 18 to Nov 25
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Gloucester County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Gloucester County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Gloucester County, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Gloucester County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Gloucester County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Gloucester County average
How we know this about Gloucester 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 Gloucester County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Gloucester County
When does frost risk typically end in Gloucester County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Gloucester County typically lands around Mar 18, 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 8.
How long is the growing season in Gloucester County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Gloucester County sees about 252 frost-free days — roughly Mar 18 through Nov 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 8 to Nov 11, about 217 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Gloucester County?
The federal record around Gloucester County shows 174 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (122), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
Everything above is measured at Gloucester County's scale — its 8a band and its 252-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Gloucester 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 Gloucester County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Gloucester County's own scale — its own ~252-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 174 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Gloucester County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Gloucester County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~252-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Gloucester CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 174 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Gloucester County's boundary and the 139,401 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~252-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Gloucester County spans, Southeastern Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Gloucester County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Gloucester 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 Gloucester County — the ~252 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 Gloucester County's 139,401 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 174 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 Gloucester Countyread your own land →