Nitro, West Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Nitro, 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 Nitro 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 Nitro — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Nitro — the short answer
Nitro, West Virginia: USDA zone 7a, about 217 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~217
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 3K 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 Nitro's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Nitro's 217-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Nitro
Each reading below is measured for Nitro itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNitro runs about 217 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
MeasuredNitro 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 Nitro is in
Nitro sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Nitro's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Kanawha County is mostly Central Appalachians. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Nitro
Every plant below cleared Nitro's own zone 7a and its 217-day season. Each card opens that plant's West Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Nitro?
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 5; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 5 — 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 Nitro
Survey cells within 31 miles of Nitro checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 110 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Nitro
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Nitro. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- WALMART SUPERCENTER #2576Brownfields · 500 ft
- SALLY BEAUTY #2374Brownfields · 700 ft
- SHERWIN-WILLIAMS #727883Brownfields · 800 ft
- LOWE'S OF NITRO, WV #616Brownfields · 900 ft
- FEDERAL EXPRESS - ZCHWBrownfields · 900 ft
- MH EQUIPMENTBrownfields · 1100 ft
- RURAL KING #91Brownfields · 1700 ft
- US ARMY-US ARMED FORCES RESERVEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- USAR - CHARLESTON AFRC/AMSA #107 (G)Brownfields · 2300 ft
- SHEETZ #612Underground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- SHEETZ #612Brownfields · 2600 ft
- LESLIE EQUIPMENT CO.Brownfields · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Nitro'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 Nitro.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Nitro
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Nitro
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Nitro, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 15 sites within ~10 miles of Nitro. 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.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Nitro
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 Nitro average
Your land is one point inside Nitro
Everything above resolves to Nitro as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Nitro Average
Nitro Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Nitro
- ●One soil character for all of Nitro
- ●Frost dates read at Nitro's scale: Apr 2 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Nitro's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Nitro
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Nitro, West Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Nitro averages can't show:
We read public map data around Nitro — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Nitro average
How we know this about Nitro
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 Nitro’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 Nitro
When does frost risk typically end in Nitro?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Nitro typically lands around Apr 2, 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 23.
When is the first frost in Nitro?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Nitro typically arrives around Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 22, so the watching starts about Oct 6 — about 217 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Nitro?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Nitro sees about 217 frost-free days — roughly Apr 2 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 23 to Oct 22, about 182 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Nitro?
The federal record around Nitro is a meaningful one — 1,051 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (515), the nearest Brownfields 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 Nitro?
From about Oct 6 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 5 (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 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Nitro's scale — its 7a band and its 217-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Nitro'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 Nitro’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Nitro's own scale — its own ~217-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,421 acres it covers and 1,051 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Nitro's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Nitro's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 2 and Nov 5 and the ~217-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,051 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Nitro, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Nitro's boundary and the 3,421 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~217-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Nitro sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Nitro 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 Nitro's 3,421 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Kanawha County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Kanawha 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 Kanawha County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Nitro's 3,421 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Nitro you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,421 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 Nitro-wide figureread your own land →