Gilmer County, in West Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Gilmer County lies within Appalachia — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Gilmer County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Gilmer County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Gilmer County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Gilmer County — the short answer
Gilmer County, West Virginia: USDA zone 6b, about 202 days between hard freezes, across 217K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~202
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 217K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 Gilmer County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Gilmer County's 202-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Gilmer County
Across a year, Gilmer County accumulates about 3,121 growing degree days above 50°F, about 111 more than the middle West Virginia county — ahead of 37 of West Virginia’s 55 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Gilmer County
Across Gilmer County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Gilpin, Peabody, and Upshur are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.6–5.5, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
8%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Gilmer County
Gilpin is the most extensive named soil at 56% of mapped acres, then Peabody (17%) and Upshur (9%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Gilmer County
Each reading below is measured for Gilmer County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Gilmer County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Gilmer County runs about pH 4.6–5.5, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredGilmer County runs about 202 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
MeasuredGilmer County 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 Gilmer County is in
Gilmer County sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Gilmer County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Gilmer County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 202-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's West Virginia profile.
Is it too late to plant in Gilmer County?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 16; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 1 — 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 Gilmer County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Gilmer County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 55 miles off. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle4 documented records
- monarch butterfly5 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Gilmer County
USGS estimates 4,428 lb of Triclopyr on Gilmer County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (3,024 lb) and 2,4-d (1,114 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Gilmer County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Gilmer County — 97 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Toxics Release Inventory facility. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Gilmer County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Gilmer County
Closest first, across Gilmer County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MARY'S PIZZERIA (FORMERLY)Underground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- BROWN'S SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- RUSSELL BUSH (*SJ/REG93/CAP)Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- DOWELL SCHLUMBERGERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- RADABAUGH PUMPS & SUPPLY INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- GO MART STORE #010Underground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- CARNEGIE NATURAL GAS COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- CEDAR CREEK STATE PARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- APPALACHIAN PIPING PROD INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- GENE STALNAKER INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- MON POWER SOUTHERN DIVISIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- MOUNTAINEER MART #27Underground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Gilmer County'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 Gilmer County.
Total Sites
97
across Gilmer County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
across Gilmer County
Severity Distribution
across Gilmer County
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
Check your specific parcel in Gilmer County
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 Gilmer County average
Your land is one point inside Gilmer County
Everything above resolves to Gilmer County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 217K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Gilmer County Average
Gilmer County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Gilmer County
- ●One soil character for all of Gilmer County
- ●Frost dates read at Gilmer County's scale: Apr 13 to Nov 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Gilmer County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Gilmer County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Gilmer County, West Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Gilmer County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Gilmer County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Gilmer County average
How we know this about Gilmer County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Gilmer County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Gilmer County
When does frost risk typically end in Gilmer County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Gilmer County typically lands around Apr 13, 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 May 4.
How long is the growing season in Gilmer County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Gilmer County sees about 202 frost-free days — roughly Apr 13 through Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 4 to Oct 18, about 167 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Gilmer County?
The federal record around Gilmer County shows 97 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (58), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.2 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.
Everything above is measured at Gilmer County's scale — its 6b band and its 202-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Gilmer County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads West Virginia's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Gilmer County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Gilmer County's own scale — its own ~202-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 97 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Gilmer County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Gilmer County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~202-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Gilmer CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 97 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Gilmer County's boundary and the 216,641 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~202-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Gilmer County sitting wholly inside the Western Allegheny PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Gilmer County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Gilmer County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every West Virginia grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom West Virginia
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Gilmer County — the ~202 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Gilmer County's 216,641 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 97 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Gilmer Countyread your own land →