Wetzel County, in West Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Growers here do well with cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Wetzel 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
Wetzel County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Wetzel 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 Wetzel County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Wetzel County — the short answer
Wetzel County, West Virginia: USDA zone 6b, about 193 days between hard freezes, across 229K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~193
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 229K 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 Wetzel County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Wetzel County's 193-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Wetzel County
Across a year, Wetzel County accumulates about 2,979 growing degree days above 50°F, about 31 fewer than the middle West Virginia county — ahead of 24 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 Wetzel County
Across Wetzel County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Gilpin, Peabody, and Skidmore 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 Wetzel County
Gilpin is the most extensive named soil at 53% of mapped acres, then Peabody (33%) and Skidmore (6%).
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 Wetzel County
Each reading below is measured for Wetzel 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 Wetzel 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 Wetzel 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
MeasuredWetzel County runs about 193 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
MeasuredWetzel 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 Wetzel County is in
Wetzel 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 Wetzel County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Wetzel County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 193-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 Wetzel County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 18; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 15 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 25 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
Documented around Wetzel County
Spotted lanternfly documented 18 miles from Wetzel County, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Wetzel County
USGS estimates 155 lb of Dicamba on Wetzel County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (133 lb) and 2,4-d (121 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 Wetzel County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Wetzel County — 195 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Wetzel County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Wetzel County
Closest first, across Wetzel County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Wet-0101Nitrate · 1.9 mi
- Wet-0107Nitrate · 3.0 mi
- MORRIS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- JAY ARMAN ESSO (FORMER)Underground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- PINE GROVE BRIDGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
- VALLEY HIGH SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- HASTINGS COMPLEX (EXTRACTION PLANT) TANK 10Brownfields · 3.6 mi
- UNCLE MANS GAS & GOUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- EGTS - MOCKINGBIRD HILL COMPRESSOR STATIONBrownfields · 3.8 mi
- PINE GROVE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.9 mi
- HASTINGS COMPRESSOR STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.9 mi
- SIMON'S MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Wetzel 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 Wetzel County.
Sources Checked
across Wetzel County
Severity Distribution
across Wetzel 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 Wetzel 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 Wetzel County average
Your land is one point inside Wetzel County
Everything above resolves to Wetzel County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 229K 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 Wetzel County Average
Wetzel County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Wetzel County
- ●One soil character for all of Wetzel County
- ●Frost dates read at Wetzel County's scale: Apr 15 to Oct 25
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Wetzel County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Wetzel County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Wetzel County, West Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Wetzel County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Wetzel County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Wetzel County average
How we know this about Wetzel 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 Wetzel County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Wetzel County
When does frost risk typically end in Wetzel County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Wetzel County typically lands around Apr 15, 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 6.
How long is the growing season in Wetzel County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Wetzel County sees about 193 frost-free days — roughly Apr 15 through Oct 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 6 to Oct 11, about 158 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Wetzel County?
The federal record around Wetzel County is a meaningful one — 195 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (108), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.9 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.
Everything above is measured at Wetzel County's scale — its 6b band and its 193-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Wetzel 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 Wetzel County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Wetzel County's own scale — its own ~193-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 195 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Wetzel County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Wetzel County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~193-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Wetzel CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 195 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 1.9 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Wetzel County's boundary and the 229,166 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~193-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Wetzel County sitting wholly inside the Western Allegheny PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Wetzel County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Wetzel 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 Wetzel County — the ~193 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 Wetzel County's 229,166 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 195 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 Wetzel Countyread your own land →