Stafford County, in Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Stafford County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Stafford 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 Stafford County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Stafford County — the short answer
Stafford County, Virginia: USDA zone 7a, about 224 days between hard freezes, across 172K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- 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
- 172K 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 7a is Stafford County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Stafford County's 224-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Stafford County
Across a year, Stafford County accumulates about 3,794 growing degree days above 50°F, about 60 more than the middle Virginia county — ahead of 70 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 Stafford County
Across Stafford County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Sassafras, Nason, and Caroline 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
20%
Hydric soils
10%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Stafford County
The USDA soil survey maps 67% of Stafford County as well drained — but another 30% drains differently: 13% poorly drained, 12% moderately well drained.
Sassafras is the most extensive named soil at 10% of mapped acres, then Nason (9%) and Caroline (9%).
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 Stafford County
Each reading below is measured for Stafford 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 Stafford 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 Stafford 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
Season length
MeasuredStafford 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
Winter hardiness
MeasuredStafford County sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Stafford County is in
Stafford County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Piedmont (51%) and Southeastern Plains (49%). 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 Stafford County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Stafford County's own USDA zone 7a 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 Stafford 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 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. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Stafford County
Spotted lanternfly documented 9 miles from Stafford County, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle2 documented records
- monarch butterfly2 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Stafford County
USGS estimates 17,401 lb of Glyphosate on Stafford County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (6,074 lb) and Simazine (2,755 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 Stafford County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Stafford County — 377 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed). 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 Stafford 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 Stafford County
Closest first, across Stafford County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- COLONIAL HIGH SCHOOL FIELD CONVERSIONBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- Mountain View MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- TYSONS MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- EDDIES REPAIR SHOPBrownfields · 1.2 mi
- COURTHOUSE PIT STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- RODNEY E THOMPSON MIDDLE SCHOOLBrownfields · 1.8 mi
- Stafford ShellUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- Courthouse CitgoUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- Virginia Paving Company StaffordUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- VDOT Stafford Area HeadquartersUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- VIRGINIA PAVING COBrownfields · 2.1 mi
- VA DPT OF TRANSPORTATIONBrownfields · 2.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Stafford 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 Stafford County.
Total Sites
377
across Stafford County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Stafford County
Severity Distribution
across Stafford 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 Stafford 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 Stafford County average
Your land is one point inside Stafford County
Everything above resolves to Stafford County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 172K 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 Stafford County Average
Stafford County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Stafford County
- ●One soil character for all of Stafford County
- ●Frost dates read at Stafford County's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Stafford County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Stafford County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Stafford County, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Stafford County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Stafford County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Stafford County average
How we know this about Stafford 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 Stafford County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Stafford County
When does frost risk typically end in Stafford County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Stafford 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 Stafford County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Stafford 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 Stafford County?
The federal record around Stafford County is a meaningful one — 377 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (225), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.9 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 Stafford County's scale — its 7a band and its 224-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Stafford 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 Stafford County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Stafford County's own scale — its own ~224-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 377 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Stafford County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Stafford 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 Stafford CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 377 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 0.9 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Stafford County's boundary and the 171,833 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~224-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Stafford County spans, Piedmont the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Stafford County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Stafford 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 Stafford 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 Stafford County's 171,833 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 377 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 Stafford Countyread your own land →