Tucker County, in West Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Tucker County lies within the Allegheny Highlands and Appalachia — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Tucker County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Tucker 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 Tucker County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Tucker County — the short answer
Tucker County, West Virginia: USDA zone 6a, about 177 days between hard freezes, across 268K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~177
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 268K 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 6a is Tucker County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Tucker County's 177-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Tucker County
Across a year, Tucker County accumulates about 1,926 growing degree days above 50°F, about 1,084 fewer than the middle West Virginia county — no other West Virginia county banks fewer. 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 Tucker County
Across Tucker County, the ground is predominantly Inceptisols, where Dekalb, Highsplint, and Berks are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a channery silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.8–5.3, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A soils.
Soil order
Inceptisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
3%
Hydric soils
14%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Tucker County
The USDA soil survey maps 69% of Tucker County as well drained — but another 30% drains differently: 11% poorly drained, 8% moderately well drained.
Dekalb is the most extensive named soil at 22% of mapped acres, then Highsplint (10%) and Berks (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 Tucker County
Each reading below is measured for Tucker 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 Tucker County are well drained, in hydrologic group A — 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 Tucker County runs about pH 4.8–5.3, 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
MeasuredTucker County runs about 177 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredTucker County sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Tucker County is in
Tucker County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Central Appalachians (51%) and Ridge and Valley (49%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Tucker County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Tucker County's own USDA zone 6a and its own 177-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 Tucker County?
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 29; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 20 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. As the window narrows, the plantings just get faster — fall brassicas, then greens, then garlic to finish.
Documented around Tucker County
Spotted lanternfly documented 22 miles from Tucker County, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle8 documented records
- monarch butterfly45 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Tucker County
USGS estimates 1,262 lb of 2,4-d on Tucker County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (934 lb) and Triclopyr (545 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 Tucker County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Tucker County — 177 documented sites across 4 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Tucker 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 Tucker County
Closest first, across Tucker County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- WVDOH - PARSONSBrownfields · 1.4 mi
- TUCKER COUNTY SCHOOLSBrownfields · 2.1 mi
- TUCKER COUNTY HIGH SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- Tuc-0029Nitrate · 3.4 mi
- DIV OF CORRECTIONS-DAVIS CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- MOUNTAIN TOP CITGOUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.9 mi
- PRESTON-TAYLOR COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS INC DBA PRESTON-TAYLOR PHARMACY #2Brownfields · 3.9 mi
- THOMAS SUB STA 08472Underground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- THOMAS CHEVRONUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- SUNRISE SANITATION SERVICES INCBrownfields · 4.1 mi
- NELSON EXCAVATINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.2 mi
- CITY SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Tucker 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 Tucker County.
Total Sites
177
across Tucker County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Tucker County
Severity Distribution
across Tucker County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Tucker County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 98 sites across Tucker County. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Tucker 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 Tucker County average
Your land is one point inside Tucker County
Everything above resolves to Tucker County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 268K 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 Tucker County Average
Tucker County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Tucker County
- ●One soil character for all of Tucker County
- ●Frost dates read at Tucker County's scale: Apr 26 to Oct 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Tucker County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Tucker County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Tucker County, West Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Tucker County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Tucker County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Tucker County average
How we know this about Tucker 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 Tucker County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Tucker County
When does frost risk typically end in Tucker County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Tucker County typically lands around Apr 26, 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 17.
How long is the growing season in Tucker County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Tucker County sees about 177 frost-free days — roughly Apr 26 through Oct 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 17 to Oct 6, about 142 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Tucker County?
The federal record around Tucker County shows 177 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (98), the nearest Brownfields record about 1.4 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 Tucker County's scale — its 6a band and its 177-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Tucker 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 Tucker County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Tucker County's own scale — its own ~177-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 177 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Tucker County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Tucker County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~177-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Tucker CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 177 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 1.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Tucker County's boundary and the 268,187 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~177-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Tucker County spans, Central Appalachians the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Tucker County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Tucker 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 Tucker County — the ~177 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 Tucker County's 268,187 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 177 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 Tucker Countyread your own land →