Apple Grove, West Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Apple Grove, 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 Apple Grove 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 Apple Grove — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Apple Grove — the short answer
Apple Grove, West Virginia: USDA zone 7a, about 220 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~220
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 7a is Apple Grove's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Apple Grove's 220-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Apple Grove
Each reading below is measured for Apple Grove itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredApple Grove runs about 220 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
MeasuredApple Grove sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Apple Grove is in
Apple Grove sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Apple Grove's own centroid rather than borrowed from Mason County.
What Grows in Apple Grove
Every plant below cleared Apple Grove's own zone 7a and its 220-day season. Each card opens that plant's West Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Apple Grove?
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 Mar 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 7 — 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 Apple Grove
Survey cells within 31 miles of Apple Grove checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 93 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Apple Grove
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Apple Grove. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Mas-0915Nitrate · 600 ft
- APG POLYTECH LLCBrownfields · 900 ft
- APG POLYTECH, LLC, APPLE GROVE PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 950 ft
- JEFFERS MARATHONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- SUNNYSIDE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- PAR MAR #80Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- US CORPS OF ENGINEERS - ROBERT C. BYRD LOCKS & DAMBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- NUCOR STEEL WEST VIRGINIA LLCBrownfields · 1.2 mi
- GALLIPOLIS LOCK AND DAMSuperfund · 1.3 mi
- S & M SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- RIPLEY BUS BAYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- COLONIAL SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Apple Grove'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 Apple Grove.
Total Sites
94
within ~10 miles of Apple Grove
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Apple Grove
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Apple Grove
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Apple Grove, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 7 sites within ~10 miles of Apple Grove. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Apple Grove
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 Apple Grove average
Your land is one point inside Apple Grove
Everything above resolves to Apple Grove as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Apple Grove Average
Apple Grove Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Apple Grove
- ●One soil character for all of Apple Grove
- ●Frost dates read at Apple Grove's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Apple Grove's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Apple Grove
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Apple Grove, West Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Apple Grove averages can't show:
We read public map data around Apple Grove — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Apple Grove average
How we know this about Apple Grove
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 Apple Grove’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 Apple Grove
When does frost risk typically end in Apple Grove?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Apple Grove typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
When is the first frost in Apple Grove?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Apple Grove typically arrives around Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 24, so the watching starts about Oct 8 — about 220 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Apple Grove?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Apple Grove sees about 220 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 24, about 185 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Apple Grove?
The federal record around Apple Grove is a meaningful one — 94 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (38), the nearest Nitrate 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 Apple Grove?
From about Oct 8 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 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 Nov 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Apple Grove's scale — its 7a band and its 220-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Apple Grove'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 Apple Grove’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Apple Grove's own scale — its own ~220-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,474 acres it covers and 94 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Apple Grove's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Apple Grove's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 7 and the ~220-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 94 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Apple Grove, the closest Nitrate record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Apple Grove's boundary and the 1,474 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~220-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Apple Grove's own centroid, the Western Allegheny PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Apple Grove 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 Apple Grove's 1,474 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Mason County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Mason County
- The growing challenges every West Virginia grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom West Virginia
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Mason County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Apple Grove's 1,474 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Apple Grove you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,474 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate 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 Apple Grove-wide figureread your own land →