Onancock, 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.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Onancock, 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 Onancock 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 Onancock — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Onancock — the short answer
Onancock, Virginia: USDA zone 8a, about 265 days between hard freezes, across 669 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~265
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 669 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 Onancock's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Onancock's 265-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Onancock
Each reading below is measured for Onancock itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredOnancock runs about 265 days between hard freezes — close to year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredOnancock 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 Onancock is in
Onancock sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Onancock's own centroid rather than borrowed from Accomack County.
What Grows in Onancock
Every plant below cleared Onancock's own zone 8a and its 265-day season. Each card opens that plant's Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Onancock?
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 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 11 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 1 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
Documented around Onancock
Survey cells within 31 miles of Onancock checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 41 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Onancock
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Onancock. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- TOWN OF ONANCOCKUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- 65K 9Nitrate · 550 ft
- 65K 17Nitrate · 650 ft
- COBBS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- LAUGHING GULL MARINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- CHARLES E. MORGAN & SON, INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- G.Y. CAMPBELL GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- ELIZABETH WILLIAMS STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- LILLISTON MELVIN JRUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- MATTHEWS-DEAN COUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- Market & Jackson St ROWUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- SPECIAL SERVICES CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Onancock'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 Onancock.
Total Sites
178
within ~10 miles of Onancock
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Onancock
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Onancock
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Onancock, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 131 sites within ~10 miles of Onancock. 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 Onancock
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 Onancock average
Your land is one point inside Onancock
Everything above resolves to Onancock as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 669 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 Onancock Average
Onancock Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Onancock
- ●One soil character for all of Onancock
- ●Frost dates read at Onancock's scale: Mar 11 to Dec 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Onancock's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Onancock
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Onancock, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Onancock averages can't show:
We read public map data around Onancock — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Onancock average
How we know this about Onancock
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 Onancock’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 Onancock
When does frost risk typically end in Onancock?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Onancock typically lands around Mar 11, 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 1.
When is the first frost in Onancock?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Onancock typically arrives around Dec 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 17, so the watching starts about Nov 1 — about 265 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Onancock?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Onancock sees about 265 frost-free days — roughly Mar 11 through Dec 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 1 to Nov 17, about 230 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Onancock?
The federal record around Onancock shows 178 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (131), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Onancock?
From about Nov 1 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 Dec 1 (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 Dec 1. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Onancock's scale — its 8a band and its 265-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Onancock'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 Onancock’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Onancock's own scale — its own ~265-day season between 28°F freezes, the 669 acres it covers and 178 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Onancock's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Onancock's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 11 and Dec 1 and the ~265-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 178 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Onancock, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Onancock's boundary and the 669 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~265-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Onancock's own centroid, the Middle Atlantic Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Onancock 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 Onancock's 669 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 Onancock's 669 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Onancock you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 669 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 Onancock-wide figureread your own land →