Portsmouth, Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Growers here do well with cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Portsmouth, 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 Portsmouth 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 Portsmouth — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Portsmouth — the short answer
Portsmouth, Virginia: USDA zone 8b, about 283 days between hard freezes, across 21K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 27
- Portsmouth city normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 7
- Portsmouth city normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~283
- Portsmouth city normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- City area
- 21K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. No 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid, so the hard-freeze dates are Portsmouth city’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 8b is Portsmouth's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Portsmouth's 283-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Portsmouth
Each reading below is measured for Portsmouth itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsPortsmouth runs about 283 days between hard freezes (read from Portsmouth city, the closest normal to Portsmouth) — 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
MeasuredPortsmouth sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b.
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 Portsmouth is in
Portsmouth sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Portsmouth's own centroid rather than borrowed from Portsmouth city.
What Grows in Portsmouth
Every plant below cleared Portsmouth's own zone 8b and its 283-day season. Each card opens that plant's Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Portsmouth?
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 Jan 30; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 27 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 7 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the calendar nearly circles: cool-season crops take the winter shift, and the next window is always close.
Documented around Portsmouth
Spotted lanternfly documented 19 miles from Portsmouth, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Portsmouth
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Portsmouth. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CLIFF BERRY INCBrownfields · 1900 ft
- Cedar Point CitgoUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- VIRGINIA BOAT & YACHT SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- Western Branch Diesel IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- WESTERN BRANCH DIESEL INCBrownfields · 2600 ft
- W.F. MAGANN CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- W F MAGANN CORPBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- East Coast Repair and Fabrication LLC Div-3Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- EAST COAST REPAIR & FABRICATION LLC DIV-3Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- EAST COAST REPAIR & FABRICATION LLC DIV-3Toxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- VIRGINIA CHEMICALS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- ATLANTIC COAST HAULING LLCBrownfields · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Portsmouth'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 Portsmouth.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Portsmouth
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Portsmouth
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.
- •TRI facilities report what they release. Check the wind — downwind beds catch more of it.
Check your specific parcel in Portsmouth
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 Portsmouth average
Your land is one point inside Portsmouth
Everything above resolves to Portsmouth as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 21K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Portsmouth city’s record because no 30-year normal resolves at this city’s own centroid. 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 city 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 Portsmouth Average
Portsmouth Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Portsmouth
- ●One soil character for all of Portsmouth
- ●Frost dates read at Portsmouth's scale: Feb 27 to Dec 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Portsmouth's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Portsmouth
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Portsmouth, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Portsmouth averages can't show:
We read public map data around Portsmouth — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Portsmouth average
How we know this about Portsmouth
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Portsmouth city’s record, because none resolves here; 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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Portsmouth
When does frost risk typically end in Portsmouth?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Portsmouth typically lands around Feb 27, 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 Mar 20.
When is the first frost in Portsmouth?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Portsmouth typically arrives around Dec 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 23, so the watching starts about Nov 7 — about 283 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Portsmouth?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Portsmouth sees about 283 frost-free days — roughly Feb 27 through Dec 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 20 to Nov 23, about 248 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Portsmouth?
The federal record around Portsmouth runs heavier than most — 2,607 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,533), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.4 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Portsmouth?
From about Nov 7 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 7 (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 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Portsmouth's scale — its 8b band and its 283-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Portsmouth'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 Portsmouth’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Portsmouth's own scale — the 21,313 acres it covers and 2,607 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Portsmouth's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- 2,607 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Portsmouth, the closest Brownfields record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Portsmouth's boundary and the 21,313 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~283-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Portsmouth's own centroid, the Middle Atlantic Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Portsmouthlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Portsmouth has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Portsmouth city
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Portsmouth's 21,313 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Portsmouth County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Portsmouth 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 Portsmouth County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Portsmouth's 21,313 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Portsmouth you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 21,313 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Portsmouth-wide figureread your own land →