Haymarket, Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Haymarket, 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 Haymarket 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 Haymarket — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Haymarket — the short answer
Haymarket, Virginia: USDA zone 7a, about 221 days between hard freezes, across 367 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~221
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 367 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 Haymarket's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Haymarket's 221-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Haymarket
Each reading below is measured for Haymarket itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHaymarket runs about 221 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
MeasuredHaymarket 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 Haymarket is in
Haymarket sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Haymarket's own centroid rather than borrowed from Prince William County.
What Grows in Haymarket
Every plant below cleared Haymarket's own zone 7a and its 221-day season. Each card opens that plant's Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Haymarket?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 29 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 5 — 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 Haymarket
Spotted lanternfly documented 1 miles from Haymarket, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Haymarket
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Haymarket. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HAYMARKET GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 100 ft
- Gainesville-Haymarket Volunteer Fire DeptUnderground Storage Tanks · 200 ft
- GTE HAYMARKET CENTRAL OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- MOUNTAIN VIEW ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- CENTURY STAIRBrownfields · 1300 ft
- L-23 PUMPING STATION DUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- MIFCO #3-008861Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- Q Stop 616Underground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- SHEETZ STORE #205Underground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- SHEETZ #205Brownfields · 2100 ft
- HAYMARKET Q STOPBrownfields · 2100 ft
- ANNANDALE MILLWORK CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Haymarket'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 Haymarket.
Total Sites
574
within ~10 miles of Haymarket
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Haymarket
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Haymarket
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.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Haymarket
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 Haymarket average
Your land is one point inside Haymarket
Everything above resolves to Haymarket as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 367 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 Haymarket Average
Haymarket Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Haymarket
- ●One soil character for all of Haymarket
- ●Frost dates read at Haymarket's scale: Mar 29 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Haymarket's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Haymarket
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Haymarket, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Haymarket averages can't show:
We read public map data around Haymarket — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Haymarket average
How we know this about Haymarket
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 Haymarket’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 Haymarket
When does frost risk typically end in Haymarket?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Haymarket typically lands around Mar 29, 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 19.
When is the first frost in Haymarket?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Haymarket typically arrives around Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 22, so the watching starts about Oct 6 — about 221 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Haymarket?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Haymarket sees about 221 frost-free days — roughly Mar 29 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 19 to Oct 22, about 186 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Haymarket?
The federal record around Haymarket is a meaningful one — 574 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (270), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Haymarket?
From about Oct 6 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 5 (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 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Haymarket's scale — its 7a band and its 221-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Haymarket'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 Haymarket’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Haymarket's own scale — its own ~221-day season between 28°F freezes, the 367 acres it covers and 574 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Haymarket's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Haymarket's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 29 and Nov 5 and the ~221-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 574 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Haymarket, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Haymarket's boundary and the 367 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~221-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Haymarket's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Haymarketlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Haymarket's 367 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Prince William County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Prince William 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 Prince William County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Haymarket's 367 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Haymarket you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 367 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Haymarket-wide figureread your own land →
More in Virginia
Wider growing context
What grows across VirginiaHaymarket sits outside our named growing regions, so Virginia as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides