McMechen, West Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
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 McMechen, 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 McMechen 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 McMechen — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
McMechen — the short answer
McMechen, West Virginia: USDA zone 6b, about 218 days between hard freezes, across 365 acres of city.
- 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)
- Nov 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~218
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 365 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 McMechen's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against McMechen's 218-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in McMechen
Each reading below is measured for McMechen itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMcMechen runs about 218 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
MeasuredMcMechen 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 McMechen is in
McMechen sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at McMechen's own centroid rather than borrowed from Marshall County.
What Grows in McMechen
Every plant below cleared McMechen's own zone 6b and its 218-day season. Each card opens that plant's West Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in McMechen?
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 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 Nov 9 — 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 McMechen
Spotted lanternfly documented 7 miles from McMechen, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near McMechen
Closest first, within ~10 miles of McMechen. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DOLLAR GENERAL STORE #14150Brownfields · 550 ft
- SATURN BRONZE INCBrownfields · 600 ft
- HEIDELBERG MATERIALS NORTHEAST LLC- WHEELING PLANT HAUBrownfields · 700 ft
- BEYOND ALL LIMITS FORMER LOLA LEWIS PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- CITY OF MCMECHEN GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- JERRY'S MINI MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- SHADYSIDE CITGOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- CSX TRANSPORTATION INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- FRANCIS MALLOTTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Mal-0095Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- GATORS PIT STOP & SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- JEFF'S WELDING & MACHINEBrownfields · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from McMechen'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 McMechen.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of McMechen
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of McMechen
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around McMechen, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of McMechen — Superfund (11 sites) and PFAS (6 sites). 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.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in McMechen
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 McMechen average
Your land is one point inside McMechen
Everything above resolves to McMechen as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 365 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 McMechen Average
McMechen Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across McMechen
- ●One soil character for all of McMechen
- ●Frost dates read at McMechen's scale: Apr 5 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not McMechen's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in McMechen
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in McMechen, West Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that McMechen averages can't show:
We read public map data around McMechen — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the McMechen average
How we know this about McMechen
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 McMechen’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 McMechen
When does frost risk typically end in McMechen?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in McMechen 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 McMechen?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in McMechen typically arrives around Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 26, so the watching starts about Oct 10 — about 218 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in McMechen?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, McMechen sees about 218 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 26, about 183 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in McMechen?
The federal record around McMechen is a meaningful one — 666 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (373), 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 McMechen?
From about Oct 10 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 9 (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 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at McMechen's scale — its 6b band and its 218-day season. Your yard writes its own version of McMechen'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 McMechen’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at McMechen's own scale — its own ~218-day season between 28°F freezes, the 365 acres it covers and 666 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- McMechen's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- McMechen's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Nov 9 and the ~218-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 666 documented contamination sites on the federal record near McMechen, the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- McMechen's boundary and the 365 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~218-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at McMechen's own centroid, the Western Allegheny PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of McMechenlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so McMechen's 365 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Marshall County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Marshall 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 Marshall County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among McMechen's 365 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of McMechen you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 365 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 McMechen-wide figureread your own land →
More in West Virginia
Growing region
Nearby growing guides