Mathews County, in Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Growers here do well with cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Mathews County lies within Tidewater & Chesapeake — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Mathews County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Mathews 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 Mathews County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Mathews County — the short answer
Mathews County, Virginia: USDA zone 8a, about 271 days between hard freezes, across 55K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~271
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 55K 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 Mathews County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Mathews County's 271-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Mathews County
Across a year, Mathews County accumulates about 4,285 growing degree days above 50°F, about 551 more than the middle Virginia county — ahead of 110 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 1,859 hours below 45°F, 579 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 Mathews County
Across Mathews County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Fallsington, Dragston, and Kempsville are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.6–5.0, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B/D soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
8%
Hydric soils
67%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Mathews County
The USDA soil survey maps 36% of Mathews County as poorly drained — but another 22% drains differently: 6% well drained, 6% somewhat poorly drained.
Fallsington is the most extensive named soil at 67% of mapped acres, then Dragston (11%) and Kempsville (10%).
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 Mathews County
Each reading below is measured for Mathews 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 Mathews County are poorly drained, in hydrologic group B/D — ground that sheds water slowly.
Beds can stay saturated for days after heavy rain, and the roots of most vegetables, berries, and fruit trees suffocate or rot in soil that never drains.
Raised beds or mounded rows lift roots above the wet zone; choose water-tolerant crops for the lowest spots.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Mathews County runs about pH 4.6–5.0, 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
MeasuredMathews County runs about 271 days between hard freezes — close to year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredMathews County 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 Mathews County is in
Mathews County sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Mathews County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Mathews County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 271-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 Mathews County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 5 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. And with a calendar this mild, the honest answer is that planting barely stops — winter opens seasons colder regions never see.
Documented around Mathews County
Spotted lanternfly documented 24 miles from Mathews County, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What gets applied to farmland in Mathews County
USGS estimates 4,078 lb of Glyphosate on Mathews County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (1,600 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (868 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 Mathews County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Mathews County — 66 documented sites across 4 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 3 brownfield sites. Former commercial or industrial land where legacy contamination may persist.
The federal record across Mathews 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 Mathews County
Closest first, across Mathews County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- J E Sadler and CompanyUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- Ricks AutoUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- Twigg Motor Company, Inc. (Former)Underground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- HyCo MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- Bailey K AdamsUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- Riverside Convalescent Center - MathewsUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- Sweetwater PlantationUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- Ransone S NUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- R E Armistead Incorporated (Former)Underground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- Mathews Furniture CompanyUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- P O PearyUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- Moughan IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Mathews 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 Mathews County.
Sources Checked
across Mathews County
Severity Distribution
across Mathews County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Mathews County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 57 sites across Mathews County. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
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 Mathews 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 Mathews County average
Your land is one point inside Mathews County
Everything above resolves to Mathews County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 55K 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 Mathews County Average
Mathews County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Mathews County
- ●One soil character for all of Mathews County
- ●Frost dates read at Mathews County's scale: Mar 9 to Dec 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Mathews County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Mathews County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Mathews County, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Mathews County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Mathews County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mathews County average
How we know this about Mathews 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 Mathews County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Mathews County
When does frost risk typically end in Mathews County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Mathews County typically lands around Mar 9, 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 Mar 30.
How long is the growing season in Mathews County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Mathews County sees about 271 frost-free days — roughly Mar 9 through Dec 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 30 to Nov 21, about 236 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Mathews County?
The federal record around Mathews County shows 66 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (57), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 2.2 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 Mathews County's scale — its 8a band and its 271-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Mathews 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 Mathews County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Mathews County's own scale — its own ~271-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 66 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Mathews County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Mathews County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~271-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Mathews CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 66 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 2.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Mathews County's boundary and the 54,983 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~271-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Mathews County sitting wholly inside the Middle Atlantic Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Mathews 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 Mathews County — the ~271 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 Mathews County's 54,983 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 66 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 Mathews Countyread your own land →