Horntown, Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — 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, fig, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Horntown, 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 Horntown 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 Horntown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Horntown — the short answer
Horntown, Virginia: USDA zone 8a, about 257 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~257
- 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 8a is Horntown's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Horntown's 257-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Horntown
Each reading below is measured for Horntown itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHorntown runs about 257 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
MeasuredHorntown 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 Horntown is in
Horntown sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Horntown's own centroid rather than borrowed from Accomack County.
What Grows in Horntown
Every plant below cleared Horntown's own zone 8a and its 257-day season. Each card opens that plant's Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Horntown?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 17; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 17 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 29 — 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 Horntown
Survey cells within 31 miles of Horntown checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 32 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Horntown
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Horntown. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- TDR ENTERPRISES INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- 67M 24Nitrate · 1.5 mi
- NOAA NESDIS Wallops CDA StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- NOAA, WALLOPS COMAND AND DATA ACQUISITION STATIONBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- MILLERS TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- 67M 6Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- NASA GSFC Wallops Flight FacilityUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- 67M 8Nitrate · 2.2 mi
- CROPPER USAR CTRBrownfields · 2.5 mi
- U.S. NASA GSFC WALLOPS FLIGHT FACILITYToxics Release Inventory · 2.5 mi
- U.S. NASA GSFC WALLOPS FLIGHT FACILITYBrownfields · 2.5 mi
- NAVY-SURFACE COMBAT SYSTEMS CENTER MAIN BASE: R-AREA BUILDINGSBrownfields · 2.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Horntown'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 Horntown.
Total Sites
293
within ~10 miles of Horntown
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Horntown
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Horntown
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Horntown, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Horntown — CAFO (65 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.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Horntown
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 Horntown average
Your land is one point inside Horntown
Everything above resolves to Horntown 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 Horntown Average
Horntown Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Horntown
- ●One soil character for all of Horntown
- ●Frost dates read at Horntown's scale: Mar 17 to Nov 29
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Horntown's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Horntown
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Horntown, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Horntown averages can't show:
We read public map data around Horntown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Horntown average
How we know this about Horntown
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 Horntown’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 Horntown
When does frost risk typically end in Horntown?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Horntown typically lands around Mar 17, 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 7.
When is the first frost in Horntown?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Horntown typically arrives around Nov 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 15, so the watching starts about Oct 30 — about 257 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Horntown?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Horntown sees about 257 frost-free days — roughly Mar 17 through Nov 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 7 to Nov 15, about 222 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Horntown?
The federal record around Horntown is a meaningful one — 293 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (137), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Horntown?
From about Oct 30 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 29 (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 29. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Horntown's scale — its 8a band and its 257-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Horntown'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 Horntown’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Horntown's own scale — its own ~257-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,373 acres it covers and 293 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Horntown's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Horntown's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 17 and Nov 29 and the ~257-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 293 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Horntown, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Horntown's boundary and the 3,373 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~257-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Horntown's own centroid, the Middle Atlantic Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Horntown checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Horntown's 3,373 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Accomack County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Accomack 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 Accomack County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Horntown's 3,373 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Horntown you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,373 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Horntown-wide figureread your own land →