Gatewood, West Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Expect cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Gatewood, 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 Gatewood 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 Gatewood — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Gatewood — the short answer
Gatewood, West Virginia: USDA zone 6b, about 208 days between hard freezes, across 988 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- 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 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~208
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 988 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 Gatewood's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Gatewood's 208-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Gatewood
Each reading below is measured for Gatewood itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredGatewood runs about 208 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
MeasuredGatewood 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 Gatewood is in
Gatewood sits in the Central Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Gatewood's own centroid rather than borrowed from Fayette County.
What Grows in Gatewood
Every plant below cleared Gatewood's own zone 6b and its 208-day season. Each card opens that plant's West Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Gatewood?
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 30 — 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 Gatewood
Survey cells within 31 miles of Gatewood checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 67 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Gatewood
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Gatewood. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Fay-0189Nitrate · 1.3 mi
- Fay-0261Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- ACE WHITEWATER LTDBrownfields · 2.8 mi
- SHAFFER EQUIP COSuperfund · 3.1 mi
- FORMERLY FUTURE SALESUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
- Fay-0293Nitrate · 3.3 mi
- Fay-0282Nitrate · 3.3 mi
- CSX TRANSPORTATION INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- FAYETTE CONVENIENCEUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- KROGER STORE #780Brownfields · 3.4 mi
- DOVE'S AUTO INCBrownfields · 3.5 mi
- KWIK FOOD MART #6Underground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Gatewood'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 Gatewood.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Gatewood
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Gatewood
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Gatewood, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 68 sites within ~10 miles of Gatewood. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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 Gatewood
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 Gatewood average
Your land is one point inside Gatewood
Everything above resolves to Gatewood as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 988 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 Gatewood Average
Gatewood Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Gatewood
- ●One soil character for all of Gatewood
- ●Frost dates read at Gatewood's scale: Apr 5 to Oct 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Gatewood's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Gatewood
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Gatewood, West Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Gatewood averages can't show:
We read public map data around Gatewood — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Gatewood average
How we know this about Gatewood
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 Gatewood’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 Gatewood
When does frost risk typically end in Gatewood?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Gatewood 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 Gatewood?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Gatewood typically arrives around Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 16, so the watching starts about Sep 30 — about 208 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Gatewood?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Gatewood sees about 208 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 16, about 173 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Gatewood?
The federal record around Gatewood is a meaningful one — 262 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (117), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.3 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 Gatewood?
From about Sep 30 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 30 (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 30. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Gatewood's scale — its 6b band and its 208-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Gatewood'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 Gatewood’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Gatewood's own scale — its own ~208-day season between 28°F freezes, the 988 acres it covers and 262 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Gatewood's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Gatewood's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Oct 30 and the ~208-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 262 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Gatewood, the closest Nitrate record about 1.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Gatewood's boundary and the 988 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~208-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Gatewood's own centroid, the Central AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Gatewood 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 Gatewood's 988 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Fayette County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Fayette 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 Fayette County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Gatewood's 988 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Gatewood you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 988 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 1.3 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 Gatewood-wide figureread your own land →
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