Kistler, West Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
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 Kistler, 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 Kistler 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 Kistler — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Kistler — the short answer
Kistler, West Virginia: USDA zone 7a, about 224 days between hard freezes, across 951 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 28
- 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
- ~224
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 951 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 Kistler's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Kistler's 224-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Kistler
Each reading below is measured for Kistler itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredKistler runs about 224 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
MeasuredKistler 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 Kistler is in
Kistler sits in the Central Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Kistler's own centroid rather than borrowed from Logan County.
What Grows in Kistler
Every plant below cleared Kistler's own zone 7a and its 224-day season. Each card opens that plant's West Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Kistler?
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 Feb 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 28 (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 Kistler
Survey cells within 31 miles of Kistler checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 72 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Kistler
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Kistler. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Log-0224Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- JACK'S SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- JOHNNY TROGDONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- TROGDON'S SUPER SERVEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- AMHERST 4H MINEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- MOUNTAINEER STEELUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- HUFF CREEK COMPRESSOR STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- TRIDELPHIA BIT CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- BUDDY'S GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- GUYAN CABLE CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- SPEEDWAY # 9326Underground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- MAN BUS GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Kistler'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 Kistler.
Total Sites
187
within ~10 miles of Kistler
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Kistler
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Kistler
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Kistler, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 132 sites within ~10 miles of Kistler. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Kistler
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 Kistler average
Your land is one point inside Kistler
Everything above resolves to Kistler as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 951 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 Kistler Average
Kistler Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Kistler
- ●One soil character for all of Kistler
- ●Frost dates read at Kistler's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Kistler's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Kistler
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Kistler, West Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Kistler averages can't show:
We read public map data around Kistler — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Kistler average
How we know this about Kistler
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 Kistler’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 Kistler
When does frost risk typically end in Kistler?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Kistler typically lands around Mar 28, 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 18.
When is the first frost in Kistler?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Kistler 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 224 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Kistler?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Kistler sees about 224 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Oct 24, about 189 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Kistler?
The federal record around Kistler shows 187 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (132), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.5 miles 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 Kistler?
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 Kistler's scale — its 7a band and its 224-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Kistler'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 Kistler’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Kistler's own scale — its own ~224-day season between 28°F freezes, the 951 acres it covers and 187 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Kistler's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Kistler's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 7 and the ~224-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 187 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Kistler, the closest Nitrate record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Kistler's boundary and the 951 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~224-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Kistler's own centroid, the Central AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Kistler 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 Kistler's 951 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Logan County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Logan 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 Logan County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Kistler's 951 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Kistler you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 951 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.5 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 Kistler-wide figureread your own land →
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