Sand Fork, 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.
Expect cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Sand Fork, 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 Sand Fork 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 Sand Fork — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Sand Fork — the short answer
Sand Fork, West Virginia: USDA zone 6b, about 204 days between hard freezes, across 208 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~204
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 208 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 Sand Fork's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Sand Fork's 204-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Sand Fork
Each reading below is measured for Sand Fork itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSand Fork runs about 204 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
MeasuredSand Fork 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 Sand Fork is in
Sand Fork sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Sand Fork's own centroid rather than borrowed from Gilmer County.
What Grows in Sand Fork
Every plant below cleared Sand Fork's own zone 6b and its 204-day season. Each card opens that plant's West Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Sand Fork?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 11 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 1 — 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 Sand Fork
Survey cells within 31 miles of Sand Fork 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 Sand Fork
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Sand Fork. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- TOMBLIN SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- TOMBLINS SERVICE STATIONBrownfields · 950 ft
- DEVON ENERGY CORP-SAND FORKUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- SAND FORK SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- TRIO PETROLEUM CORP (SHOP)Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- C M JOHNSONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- AURORA SERVICES INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- BILLY HITEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- CGST - GLENVILLE COMPRESSOR STATIONBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- Gil-0062Nitrate · 1.7 mi
- UNICOR, FEDERAL PRISON INDUSTRIESBrownfields · 1.9 mi
- FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION - GILMERToxics Release Inventory · 2.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Sand Fork'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 Sand Fork.
Total Sites
99
within ~10 miles of Sand Fork
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Sand Fork
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Sand Fork
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Sand Fork, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 65 sites within ~10 miles of Sand Fork. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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 Sand Fork
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 Sand Fork average
Your land is one point inside Sand Fork
Everything above resolves to Sand Fork as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 208 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 Sand Fork Average
Sand Fork Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Sand Fork
- ●One soil character for all of Sand Fork
- ●Frost dates read at Sand Fork's scale: Apr 11 to Nov 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Sand Fork's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Sand Fork
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Sand Fork, West Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Sand Fork averages can't show:
We read public map data around Sand Fork — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Sand Fork average
How we know this about Sand Fork
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 Sand Fork’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 Sand Fork
When does frost risk typically end in Sand Fork?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Sand Fork typically lands around Apr 11, 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 2.
When is the first frost in Sand Fork?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Sand Fork typically arrives around Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 18, so the watching starts about Oct 2 — about 204 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Sand Fork?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Sand Fork sees about 204 frost-free days — roughly Apr 11 through Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 2 to Oct 18, about 169 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Sand Fork?
The federal record around Sand Fork shows 99 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (65), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Sand Fork?
From about Oct 2 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 1 (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 1. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Sand Fork's scale — its 6b band and its 204-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Sand Fork'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 Sand Fork’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Sand Fork's own scale — its own ~204-day season between 28°F freezes, the 208 acres it covers and 99 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Sand Fork's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Sand Fork's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 11 and Nov 1 and the ~204-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 99 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Sand Fork, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Sand Fork's boundary and the 208 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~204-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Sand Fork's own centroid, the Western Allegheny PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Sand Fork 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 Sand Fork's 208 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Gilmer County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Gilmer 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 Gilmer County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Sand Fork's 208 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Sand Fork you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 208 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Sand Fork-wide figureread your own land →
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