Covel, West Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Covel, 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 Covel 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 Covel — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Covel — the short answer
Covel, West Virginia: USDA zone 6b, about 212 days between hard freezes, across 136 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~212
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 136 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 Covel's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Covel's 212-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Covel
Each reading below is measured for Covel itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCovel runs about 212 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
MeasuredCovel 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 Covel is in
Covel sits in the Central Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Covel's own centroid rather than borrowed from Wyoming County.
What Grows in Covel
Every plant below cleared Covel's own zone 6b and its 212-day season. Each card opens that plant's West Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Covel?
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 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 4 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 2 — 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 Covel
Survey cells within 31 miles of Covel checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 41 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Covel
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Covel. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- TALON MANUFACTURING CO INCToxics Release Inventory · 1.2 mi
- MILLS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- ABMI #487-0312303Underground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- DAVIS & SON INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- Wyo-0276Nitrate · 2.7 mi
- HERNDON PROCESSING COMPANY, LLC, HERNDONToxics Release Inventory · 3.5 mi
- BUD E Z STOP LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- Wyo-0288Nitrate · 4.4 mi
- BILL GORDON 449-001Underground Storage Tanks · 4.8 mi
- POCAHONTAS COAL PROPERTY (FORMER)Underground Storage Tanks · 4.8 mi
- BURRELL'S SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.1 mi
- PAUL MILAMUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Covel'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 Covel.
Total Sites
122
within ~10 miles of Covel
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Covel
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Covel
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Covel, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 77 sites within ~10 miles of Covel. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Covel
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 Covel average
Your land is one point inside Covel
Everything above resolves to Covel as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 136 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 Covel Average
Covel Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Covel
- ●One soil character for all of Covel
- ●Frost dates read at Covel's scale: Apr 4 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Covel's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Covel
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Covel, West Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Covel averages can't show:
We read public map data around Covel — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Covel average
How we know this about Covel
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 Covel’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 Covel
When does frost risk typically end in Covel?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Covel typically lands around Apr 4, 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 25.
When is the first frost in Covel?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Covel typically arrives around Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 19, so the watching starts about Oct 3 — about 212 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Covel?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Covel sees about 212 frost-free days — roughly Apr 4 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 25 to Oct 19, about 177 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Covel?
The federal record around Covel shows 122 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (77), the nearest Toxics Release Inventory 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Covel?
From about Oct 3 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 Nov 2 (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 Nov 2. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Covel's scale — its 6b band and its 212-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Covel'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 Covel’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Covel's own scale — its own ~212-day season between 28°F freezes, the 136 acres it covers and 122 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Covel's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Covel's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 4 and Nov 2 and the ~212-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 122 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Covel, the closest Toxics Release Inventory record about 1.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Covel's boundary and the 136 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~212-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Covel's own centroid, the Central AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Covel 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 Covel's 136 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 Covel's 136 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Covel you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 136 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Toxics Release Inventory record about 1.2 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 Covel-wide figureread your own land →
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