Bolt, West Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — 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, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Bolt, 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 Bolt 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 Bolt — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Bolt — the short answer
Bolt, West Virginia: USDA zone 6b, about 205 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~205
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 Bolt's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bolt's 205-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Bolt
Each reading below is measured for Bolt itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBolt runs about 205 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
MeasuredBolt 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 Bolt is in
Bolt sits in the Central Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Bolt's own centroid rather than borrowed from Raleigh County.
What Grows in Bolt
Every plant below cleared Bolt's own zone 6b and its 205-day season. Each card opens that plant's West Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Bolt?
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 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 27 — 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 Bolt
Survey cells within 31 miles of Bolt checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 60 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Bolt
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Bolt. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- WVDOH - BOLT SUBSTATIONBrownfields · 750 ft
- BOLT SUB STATION 10412Underground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- MASONS COUNTRY PACKETTEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- LARRY'S WRECKER SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- LEROY L BOTTOMLEE (JEL EXXON)Underground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- BROOKS HARDWAREUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- MAPLE MEADOW MINING COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- A-MINEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- BOLT PREPARATION PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- BECKLEY NO 4 MINEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- BOLT TRUCK SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- Ral-0065Nitrate · 2.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bolt'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 Bolt.
Total Sites
141
within ~10 miles of Bolt
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Bolt
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Bolt
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.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Bolt
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 Bolt average
Your land is one point inside Bolt
Everything above resolves to Bolt as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Bolt Average
Bolt Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Bolt
- ●One soil character for all of Bolt
- ●Frost dates read at Bolt's scale: Apr 5 to Oct 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bolt's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Bolt
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bolt, West Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bolt averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bolt — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bolt average
How we know this about Bolt
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 Bolt’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 Bolt
When does frost risk typically end in Bolt?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bolt typically lands around Apr 5, 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 26.
When is the first frost in Bolt?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Bolt typically arrives around Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 13, so the watching starts about Sep 27 — about 205 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Bolt?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bolt sees about 205 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 13, about 170 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bolt?
The federal record around Bolt shows 141 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (84), the nearest Brownfields 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 Bolt?
From about Sep 27 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 27 (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 27. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Bolt's scale — its 6b band and its 205-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bolt'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 Bolt’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Bolt's own scale — its own ~205-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,485 acres it covers and 141 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bolt's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bolt's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Oct 27 and the ~205-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 141 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Bolt, the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Bolt's boundary and the 3,485 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~205-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Bolt's own centroid, the Central AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Bolt 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 Bolt's 3,485 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Raleigh County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Raleigh 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 Raleigh County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bolt's 3,485 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Bolt you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,485 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Bolt-wide figureread your own land →
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