Cucumber, West Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, pawpaw, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Cucumber, 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 Cucumber 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 Cucumber — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Cucumber — the short answer
Cucumber, West Virginia: USDA zone 7a, about 209 days between hard freezes, across 289 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~209
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 289 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 Cucumber's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cucumber's 209-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cucumber
Each reading below is measured for Cucumber itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCucumber runs about 209 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
MeasuredCucumber 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 Cucumber is in
Cucumber sits in the Central Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Cucumber's own centroid rather than borrowed from McDowell County.
What Grows in Cucumber
Every plant below cleared Cucumber's own zone 7a and its 209-day season. Each card opens that plant's West Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Cucumber?
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 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 31 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Cucumber
Survey cells within 31 miles of Cucumber checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 39 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Cucumber
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cucumber. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Mcd-0038Nitrate · 1300 ft
- THIRD BOTTOM SAMPLINGSuperfund · 0.8 mi
- OL' COUNTRY STORE OF WEST VIRGINIAUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- BREWSTERS SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- CARL LEE TRUCKING DBA BRANDON SCOTT TRUCKINGBrownfields · 1.8 mi
- CONSOLIDATION COAL COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- B & B REPAIRUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- SQUIRE TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- RAMACO RESOURCES LLCBrownfields · 2.2 mi
- T & M GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- DOLLAR GENERAL STORE #932Brownfields · 3.0 mi
- WAR BUS GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cucumber'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 Cucumber.
Total Sites
89
within ~10 miles of Cucumber
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cucumber
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cucumber
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cucumber, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 28 sites within ~10 miles of Cucumber. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Cucumber
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 Cucumber average
Your land is one point inside Cucumber
Everything above resolves to Cucumber as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 289 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 Cucumber Average
Cucumber Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Cucumber
- ●One soil character for all of Cucumber
- ●Frost dates read at Cucumber's scale: Apr 5 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cucumber's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cucumber
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cucumber, West Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cucumber averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cucumber — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cucumber average
How we know this about Cucumber
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 Cucumber’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 Cucumber
When does frost risk typically end in Cucumber?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cucumber typically lands around Apr 5, 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 26.
When is the first frost in Cucumber?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cucumber typically arrives around Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 17, so the watching starts about Oct 1 — about 209 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Cucumber?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cucumber sees about 209 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 17, about 174 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cucumber?
The federal record around Cucumber is a meaningful one — 89 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (46), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.3 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 Cucumber?
From about Oct 1 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 Oct 31 (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 Oct 31. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Cucumber's scale — its 7a band and its 209-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cucumber'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 Cucumber’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Cucumber's own scale — its own ~209-day season between 28°F freezes, the 289 acres it covers and 89 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cucumber's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cucumber's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Oct 31 and the ~209-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 89 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cucumber, the closest Nitrate record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cucumber's boundary and the 289 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~209-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Cucumber's own centroid, the Central AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Cucumber 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 Cucumber's 289 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom McDowell County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom McDowell 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 McDowell County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Cucumber's 289 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cucumber you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 289 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.3 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 Cucumber-wide figureread your own land →
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