Pounding Mill, Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Pounding Mill, 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 Pounding Mill 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 Pounding Mill — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Pounding Mill — the short answer
Pounding Mill, Virginia: USDA zone 6b, about 204 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~204
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 6b is Pounding Mill's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pounding Mill's 204-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Pounding Mill
Each reading below is measured for Pounding Mill itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPounding Mill runs about 204 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
MeasuredPounding Mill sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Pounding Mill is in
Pounding Mill sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Pounding Mill's own centroid rather than borrowed from Tazewell County.
What Grows in Pounding Mill
Every plant below cleared Pounding Mill's own zone 6b and its 204-day season. Each card opens that plant's Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Pounding Mill?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 7 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 28 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Pounding Mill
Survey cells within 31 miles of Pounding Mill checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 37 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Pounding Mill
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Pounding Mill. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Pounding Mill Bus GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- Pounding Mill Quarry Corp - Pounding MillUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- QUIKRETE - POUNDING MILLToxics Release Inventory · 2300 ft
- Quikrete Companies Pounding MillUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- Hunter Asphalt IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- CLAYPOOL HILL TAZEWELL CO PSAPFAS · 1.2 mi
- Walmart Supercenter 2761Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- Cedar Bluff ProspectMining · 1.4 mi
- CLAYPOOL HILL PUMP STATION #4Underground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- TRACTOR SUPPLY #1244Brownfields · 1.5 mi
- Fas Mart 447Underground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- TROY ABSHER TRUCKING / MATNEY CONSTRUSTIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pounding Mill'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 Pounding Mill.
Total Sites
160
within ~10 miles of Pounding Mill
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Pounding Mill
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Pounding Mill
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Pounding Mill, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 117 sites within ~10 miles of Pounding Mill. 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 Pounding Mill
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 Pounding Mill average
Your land is one point inside Pounding Mill
Everything above resolves to Pounding Mill as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Pounding Mill Average
Pounding Mill Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Pounding Mill
- ●One soil character for all of Pounding Mill
- ●Frost dates read at Pounding Mill's scale: Apr 7 to Oct 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pounding Mill's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Pounding Mill
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pounding Mill, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pounding Mill averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pounding Mill — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pounding Mill average
How we know this about Pounding Mill
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 Pounding Mill’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 Pounding Mill
When does frost risk typically end in Pounding Mill?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pounding Mill typically lands around Apr 7, 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 28.
When is the first frost in Pounding Mill?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Pounding Mill typically arrives around Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 14, so the watching starts about Sep 28 — about 204 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Pounding Mill?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pounding Mill sees about 204 frost-free days — roughly Apr 7 through Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 28 to Oct 14, about 169 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Pounding Mill?
The federal record around Pounding Mill shows 160 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (117), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles 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 Pounding Mill?
From about Sep 28 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 Oct 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 Oct 28. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Pounding Mill's scale — its 6b band and its 204-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pounding Mill'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 Pounding Mill’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Pounding Mill's own scale — its own ~204-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,556 acres it covers and 160 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pounding Mill's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pounding Mill's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 7 and Oct 28 and the ~204-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 160 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Pounding Mill, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Pounding Mill's boundary and the 1,556 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~204-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Pounding Mill's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Pounding Mill 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 Pounding Mill's 1,556 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Tazewell County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Tazewell 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 Tazewell County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Pounding Mill's 1,556 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Pounding Mill you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,556 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 Pounding Mill-wide figureread your own land →
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