Pickens, 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.
On paper, cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Pickens, 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 Pickens 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 Pickens — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Pickens — the short answer
Pickens, West Virginia: USDA zone 6b, about 191 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~191
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 Pickens's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pickens's 191-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Pickens
Each reading below is measured for Pickens itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPickens runs about 191 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredPickens 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 Pickens is in
Pickens sits in the Central Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Pickens's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Randolph County is mostly Ridge and Valley. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Pickens
Every plant below cleared Pickens's own zone 6b and its 191-day season. Each card opens that plant's West Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Pickens?
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 22; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 19 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 27 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Late in the year the fall bench takes over — quick greens, radishes, and garlic that repays you next summer.
Documented around Pickens
Survey cells within 31 miles of Pickens checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 51 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Pickens
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Pickens. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Ran-0039Nitrate · 1500 ft
- Ran-0280Nitrate · 1700 ft
- BERT BEEN EXXONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- PICKENS SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- JOHN F HARRISUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- PICKENS SUB STA 08425Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- COMMUNITY CARE OF HELVETIABrownfields · 3.5 mi
- J M HUBER CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- BEECH MOUNTAIN RAILROAD COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- Ran-0282Nitrate · 4.7 mi
- WARE LUMBER AND FENCE SITESuperfund · 6.2 mi
- SAYRES STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pickens'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 Pickens.
Total Sites
43
within ~10 miles of Pickens
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Pickens
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Pickens
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Pickens, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 22 sites within ~10 miles of Pickens. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Pickens
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 Pickens average
Your land is one point inside Pickens
Everything above resolves to Pickens as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Pickens Average
Pickens Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Pickens
- ●One soil character for all of Pickens
- ●Frost dates read at Pickens's scale: Apr 19 to Oct 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pickens's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Pickens
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pickens, West Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pickens averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pickens — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pickens average
How we know this about Pickens
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 Pickens’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 Pickens
When does frost risk typically end in Pickens?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pickens typically lands around Apr 19, 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 May 10.
When is the first frost in Pickens?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Pickens typically arrives around Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 13, so the watching starts about Sep 27 — about 191 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Pickens?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pickens sees about 191 frost-free days — roughly Apr 19 through Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 10 to Oct 13, about 156 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Pickens?
The federal record around Pickens is a meaningful one — 43 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (22), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.3 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 Pickens?
From about Sep 27 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 27 (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 27. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Pickens's scale — its 6b band and its 191-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pickens'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 Pickens’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Pickens's own scale — its own ~191-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,300 acres it covers and 43 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pickens's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pickens's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 19 and Oct 27 and the ~191-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 43 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Pickens, the closest Nitrate record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Pickens's boundary and the 1,300 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~191-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Pickens sits in the Central Appalachians — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Pickens 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 Pickens's 1,300 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Randolph County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Randolph 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 Randolph County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Pickens's 1,300 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Pickens you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,300 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.3 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 Pickens-wide figureread your own land →