Elizabeth, West Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Elizabeth, 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 Elizabeth 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 Elizabeth — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Elizabeth — the short answer
Elizabeth, West Virginia: USDA zone 6b, about 209 days between hard freezes, across 303 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~209
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 303 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 Elizabeth's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Elizabeth's 209-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Elizabeth
Each reading below is measured for Elizabeth itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredElizabeth 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
MeasuredElizabeth 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 Elizabeth is in
Elizabeth sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Elizabeth's own centroid rather than borrowed from Wirt County.
What Grows in Elizabeth
Every plant below cleared Elizabeth's own zone 6b and its 209-day season. Each card opens that plant's West Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Elizabeth?
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 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 1 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Elizabeth
Survey cells within 31 miles of Elizabeth checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 70 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Elizabeth
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Elizabeth. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- LITTLE GENERAL STORE #7550Brownfields · 300 ft
- LITTLE GENERAL #7550Underground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- WVDOH - WIRT COUNY HEADQUARTERSBrownfields · 550 ft
- WIRT COUNTY SCHOOLS BUS MAINTENANCE GARAGEBrownfields · 850 ft
- ELIZABETH SEWER PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- WIRT CO BD OF ED BUS GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- WIRT CO HQ 03531Underground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- COPLIN - WIRT COUNTY FAMILY CAREBrownfields · 1400 ft
- CARDINAL PHARMACYBrownfields · 1400 ft
- Wir-0064Nitrate · 1800 ft
- WIRT CO AUTO PARTSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- ADVANCE AUTO PARTS #7768Brownfields · 1900 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Elizabeth'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 Elizabeth.
Total Sites
66
within ~10 miles of Elizabeth
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Elizabeth
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Elizabeth
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Elizabeth, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 22 sites within ~10 miles of Elizabeth. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
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 Elizabeth
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 Elizabeth average
Your land is one point inside Elizabeth
Everything above resolves to Elizabeth as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 303 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 Elizabeth Average
Elizabeth Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Elizabeth
- ●One soil character for all of Elizabeth
- ●Frost dates read at Elizabeth's scale: Apr 6 to Nov 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Elizabeth's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Elizabeth
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Elizabeth, West Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Elizabeth averages can't show:
We read public map data around Elizabeth — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Elizabeth average
How we know this about Elizabeth
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 Elizabeth’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 Elizabeth
When does frost risk typically end in Elizabeth?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Elizabeth typically lands around Apr 6, 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 27.
When is the first frost in Elizabeth?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Elizabeth typically arrives around Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 18, so the watching starts about Oct 2 — about 209 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Elizabeth?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Elizabeth sees about 209 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 18, about 174 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Elizabeth?
The federal record around Elizabeth shows 66 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (29), the nearest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile 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 Elizabeth?
From about Oct 2 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 1 (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 1. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Elizabeth's scale — its 6b band and its 209-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Elizabeth'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 Elizabeth’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Elizabeth's own scale — its own ~209-day season between 28°F freezes, the 303 acres it covers and 66 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Elizabeth's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Elizabeth's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 6 and Nov 1 and the ~209-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 66 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Elizabeth, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Elizabeth's boundary and the 303 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~209-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Elizabeth's own centroid, the Western Allegheny PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Elizabeth 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 Elizabeth's 303 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Wirt County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Wirt 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 Wirt County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Elizabeth's 303 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Elizabeth you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 303 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile 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 Elizabeth-wide figureread your own land →
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