Portsmouth city, in Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Portsmouth city lies within the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia and Tidewater & Chesapeake — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Portsmouth city holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Portsmouth city, 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 Portsmouth city — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Portsmouth city — the short answer
Portsmouth city, Virginia: USDA zone 8b, about 283 days between hard freezes, across 21K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~283
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 21K 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 8b is Portsmouth city's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Portsmouth city's 283-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Portsmouth city
Across a year, Portsmouth city accumulates about 4,636 growing degree days above 50°F, about 902 more than the middle Virginia county — ahead of 131 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 1,572 hours below 45°F, 866 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 Portsmouth County
Across Portsmouth County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Chickahominy, Craven, and Slagle are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately well drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.0–5.3, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Moderately well drained
Hydric soils
31%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Portsmouth city
The USDA soil survey maps 22% of Portsmouth city as moderately well drained — but another 26% drains differently: 18% poorly drained, 5% somewhat poorly drained.
Chickahominy is the most extensive named soil at 21% of mapped acres, then Craven (13%) and Slagle (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 Portsmouth city
Each reading below is measured for Portsmouth city itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Portsmouth city are moderately well drained, in hydrologic group D — roughly the middle of the drainage range.
This is close to the middle most vegetables prefer: it holds enough water to carry a crop between rains without staying waterlogged. The catch is that a wet spring or a low corner can still tip it soggy.
Plant on the site as-is for most crops, but keep the lowest, slowest-draining beds for moisture-tolerant plantings.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Portsmouth city runs about pH 4.0–5.3, 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 31% of Portsmouth city 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
MeasuredPortsmouth city runs about 283 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
The kind of country Portsmouth city is in
Portsmouth city 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 Portsmouth city
We scored all 1,086 plants against Portsmouth city's own USDA zone 8b and its own 283-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 Portsmouth city?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 30; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 27 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 7 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
Documented around Portsmouth city
Spotted lanternfly documented 19 miles from Portsmouth city, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly30 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Portsmouth County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Portsmouth County — 492 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 8 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Portsmouth city carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Portsmouth city
Closest first, across Portsmouth County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CLIFF BERRY INCBrownfields · 1900 ft
- Cedar Point CitgoUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- VIRGINIA BOAT & YACHT SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- Western Branch Diesel IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- WESTERN BRANCH DIESEL INCBrownfields · 2600 ft
- W.F. MAGANN CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- W F MAGANN CORPBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- East Coast Repair and Fabrication LLC Div-3Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- EAST COAST REPAIR & FABRICATION LLC DIV-3Toxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- EAST COAST REPAIR & FABRICATION LLC DIV-3Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- VIRGINIA CHEMICALS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- ATLANTIC COAST HAULING LLCBrownfields · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Portsmouth city'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 Portsmouth city.
Sources Checked
across Portsmouth County
Severity Distribution
across Portsmouth County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Portsmouth city, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 8 sites across Portsmouth County. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Portsmouth city
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 Portsmouth city average
Your land is one point inside Portsmouth city
Everything above resolves to Portsmouth city as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 21K 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 Portsmouth city Average
Portsmouth city Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Portsmouth city
- ●One soil character for all of Portsmouth city
- ●Frost dates read at Portsmouth city's scale: Feb 27 to Dec 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Portsmouth city's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Portsmouth city
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Portsmouth city, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Portsmouth city averages can't show:
We read public map data around Portsmouth city — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Portsmouth city average
How we know this about Portsmouth city
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 Portsmouth city carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Portsmouth city
When does frost risk typically end in Portsmouth city?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Portsmouth city typically lands around Feb 27, 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 20.
How long is the growing season in Portsmouth city?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Portsmouth city sees about 283 frost-free days — roughly Feb 27 through Dec 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 20 to Nov 23, about 248 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Portsmouth city?
The federal record around Portsmouth city runs heavier than most — 492 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (270), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.4 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
Everything above is measured at Portsmouth city's scale — its 8b band and its 283-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Portsmouth city'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 Portsmouth city’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Portsmouth city's own scale — its own ~283-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 492 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Portsmouth city's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Portsmouth city's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~283-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Portsmouth cityUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 492 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 0.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Portsmouth city's boundary and the 21,313 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~283-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Portsmouth city sitting wholly inside the Middle Atlantic Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Portsmouth city for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
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 Portsmouth city — the ~283 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 Portsmouth city's 21,313 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 492 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 Portsmouth cityread your own land →