Grayson County, in Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Growers here do well with cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Grayson County lies within the Blue Ridge and Appalachia — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Grayson County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Grayson 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 Grayson County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Grayson County — the short answer
Grayson County, Virginia: USDA zone 6b, about 191 days between hard freezes, across 283K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~191
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 283K 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 6b is Grayson County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Grayson County's 191-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Grayson County
Across a year, Grayson County accumulates about 2,276 growing degree days above 50°F, about 1,458 fewer than the middle Virginia county — ahead of 1 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.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Grayson County
Across Grayson County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Peaks, Edneytown, and Edneyville are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.2–5.8, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
3%
Hydric soils
2%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Grayson County
The USDA soil survey maps 73% of Grayson County as well drained — but another 26% drains differently: 21% somewhat excessively drained, 2% somewhat poorly drained.
Peaks is the most extensive named soil at 19% of mapped acres, then Edneytown (17%) and Edneyville (14%).
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 Grayson County
Each reading below is measured for Grayson 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 Grayson 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 Grayson County runs about pH 5.2–5.8, 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
Season length
MeasuredGrayson County runs about 191 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredGrayson County sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Grayson County is in
Grayson County sits in the Blue Ridge — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Grayson County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Grayson County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 191-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 Grayson 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 Mar 19; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 16 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 24 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
Documented around Grayson County
Spotted lanternfly documented 21 miles from Grayson County, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle1 documented records
- monarch butterfly5 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Grayson County
USGS estimates 10,231 lb of Glyphosate on Grayson County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (6,784 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (6,366 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 Grayson County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Grayson County — 136 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Grayson 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 Grayson County
Closest first, across Grayson County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- M B ANDERS (CLOSED)Underground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- BRIDLE CREEK ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- Dowells TexacoUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- Rite Way ExcavatingUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- Rixeys MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- OLD KRAFT MILK PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- Clark Hill StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- TOWN OF INDEPENDENCE MAINTENANCE SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- Parsons Motor Company IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- E and R Oil Co IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- Wilson MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
- Davis ProspectMining · 3.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Grayson 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 Grayson County.
Total Sites
136
across Grayson County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Grayson County
Severity Distribution
across Grayson County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Grayson County, two things run higher than the national average across Grayson County — Mining (20 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (96 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Grayson 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 Grayson County average
Your land is one point inside Grayson County
Everything above resolves to Grayson County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 283K 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 Grayson County Average
Grayson County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Grayson County
- ●One soil character for all of Grayson County
- ●Frost dates read at Grayson County's scale: Apr 16 to Oct 24
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Grayson County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Grayson County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Grayson County, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Grayson County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Grayson County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Grayson County average
How we know this about Grayson 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 Grayson County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Grayson County
When does frost risk typically end in Grayson County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Grayson County typically lands around Apr 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 May 7.
How long is the growing season in Grayson County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Grayson County sees about 191 frost-free days — roughly Apr 16 through Oct 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 7 to Oct 10, about 156 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Grayson County?
The federal record around Grayson County shows 136 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (96), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 2.1 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 Grayson County's scale — its 6b band and its 191-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Grayson 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 Grayson County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Grayson County's own scale — its own ~191-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 136 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Grayson County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Grayson County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~191-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Grayson CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 136 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 2.1 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Grayson County's boundary and the 282,742 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~191-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Grayson County sitting wholly inside the Blue RidgeUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Grayson County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Grayson 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 Grayson County — the ~191 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 Grayson County's 282,742 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 136 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 Grayson Countyread your own land →