Eleanor, West Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Eleanor, 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 Eleanor 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 Eleanor — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Eleanor — the short answer
Eleanor, West Virginia: USDA zone 7a, about 222 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~222
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 Eleanor's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Eleanor's 222-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Eleanor
Each reading below is measured for Eleanor itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredEleanor runs about 222 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
MeasuredEleanor 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 Eleanor is in
Eleanor sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Eleanor's own centroid rather than borrowed from Putnam County.
What Grows in Eleanor
Every plant below cleared Eleanor's own zone 7a and its 222-day season. Each card opens that plant's West Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Eleanor?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 2; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 30 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 7 — 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 Eleanor
Survey cells within 31 miles of Eleanor checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 101 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Eleanor
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Eleanor. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PUTNAM CAREER & TECHNICAL CENTERBrownfields · 750 ft
- UNCERTAINUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- JACK KELLEY PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- GEORGE WASHINGTON MIDDLE SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- WVARNG - ELEANOR MAINTENANCE FACILITYBrownfields · 2100 ft
- FOODLAND EXPRESSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- WALGREENS DBA RITE AID #141Brownfields · 2400 ft
- MEADOWS BODY SHOPBrownfields · 2500 ft
- Put-0610Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- ELEANOR EXXONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Put-0620Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- SUPERAMERICA 9764Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Eleanor'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 Eleanor.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Eleanor
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Eleanor
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Eleanor, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 11 sites within ~10 miles of Eleanor. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Eleanor
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 Eleanor average
Your land is one point inside Eleanor
Everything above resolves to Eleanor as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Eleanor Average
Eleanor Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Eleanor
- ●One soil character for all of Eleanor
- ●Frost dates read at Eleanor's scale: Mar 30 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Eleanor's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Eleanor
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Eleanor, West Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Eleanor averages can't show:
We read public map data around Eleanor — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Eleanor average
How we know this about Eleanor
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 Eleanor’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 Eleanor
When does frost risk typically end in Eleanor?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Eleanor typically lands around Mar 30, 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 20.
When is the first frost in Eleanor?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Eleanor typically arrives around Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 24, so the watching starts about Oct 8 — about 222 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Eleanor?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Eleanor sees about 222 frost-free days — roughly Mar 30 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 20 to Oct 24, about 187 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Eleanor?
The federal record around Eleanor is a meaningful one — 439 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (184), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.1 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 Eleanor?
From about Oct 8 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 7 (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 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Eleanor's scale — its 7a band and its 222-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Eleanor'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 Eleanor’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Eleanor's own scale — its own ~222-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,314 acres it covers and 439 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Eleanor's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Eleanor's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 30 and Nov 7 and the ~222-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 439 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Eleanor, the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Eleanor's boundary and the 1,314 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~222-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Eleanor's own centroid, the Western Allegheny PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Eleanor 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 Eleanor's 1,314 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Putnam County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Putnam 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 Putnam County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Eleanor's 1,314 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Eleanor you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,314 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 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 Eleanor-wide figureread your own land →