Bud, West Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
On paper, cabbage, pawpaw, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Bud, 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 Bud 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 Bud — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Bud — the short answer
Bud, West Virginia: USDA zone 7a, about 206 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- 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 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~206
- 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 7a is Bud's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bud's 206-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Bud
Each reading below is measured for Bud itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBud runs about 206 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
MeasuredBud 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 Bud is in
Bud sits in the Central Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Bud's own centroid rather than borrowed from Wyoming County.
What Grows in Bud
Every plant below cleared Bud's own zone 7a and its 206-day season. Each card opens that plant's West Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Bud?
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 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 30 — 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 Bud
Survey cells within 31 miles of Bud checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 44 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Bud
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Bud. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BUD E Z STOP LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- HERNDON PROCESSING COMPANY, LLC, HERNDONToxics Release Inventory · 0.7 mi
- BURRELL'S SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- PAUL MILAMUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- Wyo-0276Nitrate · 1.8 mi
- L & B PIT STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- DAVIS & SON INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- ABMI #487-0312303Underground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- Wyo-0288Nitrate · 2.5 mi
- FRANK BLACKWELL PROPERTY (FORMER)Underground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- NORFOLK SOUTHERN RAILWAY CO - ELMORE YARDBrownfields · 2.8 mi
- MILLS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bud'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 Bud.
Total Sites
169
within ~10 miles of Bud
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
7 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Bud
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Bud
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 Bud
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 Bud average
Your land is one point inside Bud
Everything above resolves to Bud 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 Bud Average
Bud Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Bud
- ●One soil character for all of Bud
- ●Frost dates read at Bud's scale: Apr 7 to Oct 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bud's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Bud
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bud, West Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bud averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bud — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bud average
How we know this about Bud
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 Bud’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 Bud
When does frost risk typically end in Bud?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bud 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 Bud?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Bud typically arrives around Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 16, so the watching starts about Sep 30 — about 206 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Bud?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bud sees about 206 frost-free days — roughly Apr 7 through Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 28 to Oct 16, about 171 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bud?
The federal record around Bud shows 169 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (96), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 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 Bud?
From about Sep 30 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 30 (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 30. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Bud's scale — its 7a band and its 206-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bud'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 Bud’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Bud's own scale — its own ~206-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,998 acres it covers and 169 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bud's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bud's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 7 and Oct 30 and the ~206-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 169 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Bud, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Bud's boundary and the 1,998 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~206-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Bud's own centroid, the Central AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Bud 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 Bud's 1,998 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Wyoming County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Wyoming 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 Wyoming County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bud's 1,998 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Bud you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,998 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 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 Bud-wide figureread your own land →
More in West Virginia
Growing region
Nearby growing guides