Huntington, West Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Huntington, 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 Huntington 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 Huntington — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Huntington — the short answer
Huntington, West Virginia: USDA zone 7a, about 221 days between hard freezes, across 10K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- 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
- ~221
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 10K 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 Huntington's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Huntington's 221-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Huntington
Each reading below is measured for Huntington itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHuntington runs about 221 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
MeasuredHuntington 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 Huntington is in
Huntington sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Huntington's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cabell County.
What Grows in Huntington
Every plant below cleared Huntington's own zone 7a and its 221-day season. Each card opens that plant's West Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Huntington?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 31 (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 Huntington
Survey cells within 31 miles of Huntington checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 109 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Huntington
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Huntington. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 13TH STREET LAB AND RAD SITESuperfund · 450 ft
- MARSHALL UNIVERSITY FORENSIC SCIENCE CENTERBrownfields · 1200 ft
- MARSHALL UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE - ERMA O BYRD CLINICAL BLDGBrownfields · 1400 ft
- EBENEZER MEDICAL OUTREACH, INC. - PHARMACYBrownfields · 1600 ft
- PATHOLOGY SERVICES GROUPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- HUNTINGTON MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- FORMER WHITTEN'S CHEVRONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- WALGREEN DRUG STORE #17117Brownfields · 1800 ft
- CABELL HUNTINGTON HOSPITAL, INCBrownfields · 1800 ft
- PO BOYS TIRESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- COMMUNITY TOWEL & UNIFORM COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- CABELL HUNTINGTON HOSPITALUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Huntington'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 Huntington.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Huntington
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Huntington
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Huntington, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 15 sites within ~10 miles of Huntington. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
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 Huntington
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 Huntington average
Your land is one point inside Huntington
Everything above resolves to Huntington as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 10K 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 city 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 Huntington Average
Huntington Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Huntington
- ●One soil character for all of Huntington
- ●Frost dates read at Huntington's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Huntington's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Huntington
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Huntington, West Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Huntington averages can't show:
We read public map data around Huntington — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Huntington average
How we know this about Huntington
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Huntington’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Huntington
When does frost risk typically end in Huntington?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Huntington typically lands around Mar 31, 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 21.
When is the first frost in Huntington?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Huntington 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 221 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Huntington?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Huntington sees about 221 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 24, about 186 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Huntington?
The federal record around Huntington is a meaningful one — 851 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (462), the nearest Superfund record under a tenth of a mile 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 Huntington?
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 Huntington's scale — its 7a band and its 221-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Huntington'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 Huntington’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Huntington's own scale — its own ~221-day season between 28°F freezes, the 10,380 acres it covers and 851 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Huntington's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Huntington's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Nov 7 and the ~221-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 851 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Huntington, the closest Superfund record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Huntington's boundary and the 10,380 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~221-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Huntington's own centroid, the Western Allegheny PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Huntington 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 Huntington's 10,380 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cabell County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cabell 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 Cabell County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Huntington's 10,380 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Huntington you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 10,380 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Superfund 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 Huntington-wide figureread your own land →