Dooms, Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, 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.
Even in Dooms, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Dooms lot. 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 Dooms — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Dooms — the short answer
Dooms, Virginia: USDA zone 7a, about 222 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~222
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 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 Dooms's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Dooms's 222-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Dooms
Each reading below is measured for Dooms itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDooms runs about 222 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
MeasuredDooms 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 Dooms is in
Dooms sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Dooms's own centroid rather than borrowed from Augusta County.
What Grows in Dooms
Every plant below cleared Dooms's own zone 7a and its 222-day season. Each card opens that plant's Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Dooms?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 31 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 8 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Dooms
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Dooms, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Dooms
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Dooms. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SPENCER & BROWN RIGGING & MILLWRIGHT INCBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- Driver Heating Oil IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- VALLEY PRECISION INCBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- LEHIGH PORTLAND CEMENT COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- SPEEDY FOOD MART, INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- FRYES MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Genicom CorporationUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- GENICOM CORPBrownfields · 1.4 mi
- GENICOM CORPToxics Release Inventory · 1.4 mi
- ALLIED READY MIX COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- UNITED SERVO HYDRAULICS INCBrownfields · 1.5 mi
- CORNING GLASS WORKSToxics Release Inventory · 1.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Dooms'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 Dooms.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Dooms
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Dooms
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Dooms, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Dooms — Toxics Release Inventory (33 sites) and PFAS (3 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Dooms
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 Dooms average
Your land is one point inside Dooms
Everything above resolves to Dooms as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 town 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 local average.
Your Lot vs the Dooms Average
Dooms Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Dooms
- ●One soil character for all of Dooms
- ●Frost dates read at Dooms's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Dooms's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Dooms
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Dooms, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Dooms averages can't show:
We read public map data around Dooms — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Dooms average
How we know this about Dooms
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Dooms’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Dooms
When does frost risk typically end in Dooms?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Dooms typically lands around Mar 31, 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 21.
When is the first frost in Dooms?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Dooms typically arrives around Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 25, so the watching starts about Oct 9 — about 222 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Dooms?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Dooms sees about 222 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 25, about 187 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Dooms?
The federal record around Dooms is a meaningful one — 324 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (205), the nearest Brownfields record about 1.0 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Dooms?
From about Oct 9 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Nov 8 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Nov 8. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Dooms's scale — its 7a band and its 222-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Dooms's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Dooms’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Dooms's own scale — its own ~222-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,575 acres it covers and 324 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Dooms's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Dooms's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Nov 8 and the ~222-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 324 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Dooms, the closest Brownfields record about 1.0 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Dooms's boundary and the 2,575 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~222-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Dooms's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Doomslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Dooms's 2,575 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Augusta County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Augusta County
- The growing challenges every Virginia grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Virginia
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Augusta County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Dooms's 2,575 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Dooms you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,575 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 1.0 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Dooms-wide figureread your own land →