Crooked Creek, West Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Crooked Creek, 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 Crooked Creek 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 Crooked Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Crooked Creek — the short answer
Crooked Creek, West Virginia: USDA zone 7a, about 235 days between hard freezes, across 364 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~235
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 364 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 Crooked Creek's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Crooked Creek's 235-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Crooked Creek
Each reading below is measured for Crooked Creek itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCrooked Creek runs about 235 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
MeasuredCrooked Creek 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 Crooked Creek is in
Crooked Creek sits in the Central Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Crooked Creek's own centroid rather than borrowed from Logan County.
What Grows in Crooked Creek
Every plant below cleared Crooked Creek's own zone 7a and its 235-day season. Each card opens that plant's West Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Crooked Creek?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 24; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 24 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 14 — 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 Crooked Creek
Survey cells within 31 miles of Crooked Creek checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 83 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Crooked Creek
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Crooked Creek. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BELVA COAL COUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- CSX TRANSPORTATION INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- INTERNATIONAL CYLINDER & MACHINEBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- MARIO MENDEZ GULFUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- LOGAN SOCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- LOGAN DETACH W VA STATE POLICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- MIKE FERRELL LINC/MERC INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- BLEVINS UNION 76Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- T C JUSTICE JUSTICE FEED HARDWARUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- RALPH R WILLIS VOC TECH CENTERBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- WV0032Underground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- HAROLD DALTON PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Crooked Creek'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 Crooked Creek.
Total Sites
266
within ~10 miles of Crooked Creek
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
68 brownfield sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Crooked Creek
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Crooked Creek
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Crooked Creek, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 181 sites within ~10 miles of Crooked Creek. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Crooked Creek
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 Crooked Creek average
Your land is one point inside Crooked Creek
Everything above resolves to Crooked Creek as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 364 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 Crooked Creek Average
Crooked Creek Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Crooked Creek
- ●One soil character for all of Crooked Creek
- ●Frost dates read at Crooked Creek's scale: Mar 24 to Nov 14
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Crooked Creek's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Crooked Creek
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Crooked Creek, West Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Crooked Creek averages can't show:
We read public map data around Crooked Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Crooked Creek average
How we know this about Crooked Creek
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 Crooked Creek’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 Crooked Creek
When does frost risk typically end in Crooked Creek?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Crooked Creek typically lands around Mar 24, 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 14.
When is the first frost in Crooked Creek?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Crooked Creek typically arrives around Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 31, so the watching starts about Oct 15 — about 235 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Crooked Creek?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Crooked Creek sees about 235 frost-free days — roughly Mar 24 through Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 14 to Oct 31, about 200 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Crooked Creek?
The federal record around Crooked Creek is a meaningful one — 266 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (181), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Crooked Creek?
From about Oct 15 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 14 (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 14. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Crooked Creek's scale — its 7a band and its 235-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Crooked Creek'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 Crooked Creek’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Crooked Creek's own scale — its own ~235-day season between 28°F freezes, the 364 acres it covers and 266 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Crooked Creek's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Crooked Creek's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 24 and Nov 14 and the ~235-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 266 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Crooked Creek, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Crooked Creek's boundary and the 364 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~235-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Crooked Creek's own centroid, the Central AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Crooked Creek 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 Crooked Creek's 364 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Logan County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Logan 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 Logan County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Crooked Creek's 364 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Crooked Creek you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 364 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 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 Crooked Creek-wide figureread your own land →
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