Keller, Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
The conditions favor cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Keller, 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 Keller 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 Keller — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Keller — the short answer
Keller, Virginia: USDA zone 8a, about 258 days between hard freezes, across 219 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~258
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 219 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 Keller's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Keller's 258-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Keller
Each reading below is measured for Keller itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredKeller runs about 258 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
MeasuredKeller 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 Keller is in
Keller sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Keller's own centroid rather than borrowed from Accomack County.
What Grows in Keller
Every plant below cleared Keller's own zone 8a and its 258-day season. Each card opens that plant's Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Keller?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 15; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 15 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 28 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Keller
Survey cells within 31 miles of Keller checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 47 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Keller
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Keller. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Stevens GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- NEYERS & TABAKINUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- ELLER TIRE COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- BAGWELL OIL CO INC (CLOSED)Underground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- DOUGHTY LINCOLN-MERCURY INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- J&N TRANSPORTAION CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- AMOCO OIL COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- EASTERN SHORE COMMUNITY COLLEGEBrownfields · 1.5 mi
- 64K 5Nitrate · 1.5 mi
- Eastern Shore Community CollegeUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- CENTRAL MIDDLE SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- 64J 1Nitrate · 1.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Keller'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 Keller.
Total Sites
201
within ~10 miles of Keller
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Keller
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Keller
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Keller, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 150 sites within ~10 miles of Keller. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Keller
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 Keller average
Your land is one point inside Keller
Everything above resolves to Keller as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 219 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 Keller Average
Keller Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Keller
- ●One soil character for all of Keller
- ●Frost dates read at Keller's scale: Mar 15 to Nov 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Keller's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Keller
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Keller, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Keller averages can't show:
We read public map data around Keller — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Keller average
How we know this about Keller
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 Keller’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 Keller
When does frost risk typically end in Keller?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Keller typically lands around Mar 15, 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 5.
When is the first frost in Keller?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Keller typically arrives around Nov 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 14, so the watching starts about Oct 29 — about 258 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Keller?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Keller sees about 258 frost-free days — roughly Mar 15 through Nov 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 5 to Nov 14, about 223 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Keller?
The federal record around Keller is a meaningful one — 201 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (150), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Keller?
From about Oct 29 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 28 (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 28. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Keller's scale — its 8a band and its 258-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Keller'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 Keller’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Keller's own scale — its own ~258-day season between 28°F freezes, the 219 acres it covers and 201 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Keller's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Keller's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 15 and Nov 28 and the ~258-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 201 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Keller, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Keller's boundary and the 219 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~258-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Keller's own centroid, the Middle Atlantic Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Keller 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 Keller's 219 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 Keller's 219 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Keller you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 219 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Keller-wide figureread your own land →