Sistersville, West Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Sistersville, 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 Sistersville 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 Sistersville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Sistersville — the short answer
Sistersville, West Virginia: USDA zone 6b, about 208 days between hard freezes, across 336 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~208
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 336 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 Sistersville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Sistersville's 208-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Sistersville
Each reading below is measured for Sistersville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSistersville runs about 208 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
MeasuredSistersville 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 Sistersville is in
Sistersville sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Sistersville's own centroid rather than borrowed from Tyler County.
What Grows in Sistersville
Every plant below cleared Sistersville's own zone 6b and its 208-day season. Each card opens that plant's West Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Sistersville?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 3 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Sistersville
Survey cells within 31 miles of Sistersville checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 36 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Sistersville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Sistersville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- TYLER CO HQ 06481Underground Storage Tanks · 75 ft
- PRECISION INTERNATIONAL LLCBrownfields · 300 ft
- PRECISION INTERNATIONAL LLCToxics Release Inventory · 300 ft
- HERB'S PAINT AND BODY SHOP LLCBrownfields · 1200 ft
- OLD TEXACO SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- UNKNOWN/NO FORMS/DLJUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- MONONGAHELA POWER COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- MONONGAHELA POWER CO - SISTERSVILLE SERVICE CENTERBrownfields · 1300 ft
- SISTERSVILLE SERVICENTER (*SJ/CAP)Underground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- MARIETTA MEMORIAL HOSPITAL OF TYLER CO INC - DBA SISTERSVILLE GENERAL HOSPITALBrownfields · 1500 ft
- SISTERSVILLE GENERAL HOSPITALUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- PAR MAR STORE # 10Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Sistersville'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 Sistersville.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Sistersville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Sistersville
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Sistersville
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 Sistersville average
Your land is one point inside Sistersville
Everything above resolves to Sistersville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 336 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 Sistersville Average
Sistersville Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Sistersville
- ●One soil character for all of Sistersville
- ●Frost dates read at Sistersville's scale: Apr 9 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Sistersville's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Sistersville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Sistersville, West Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Sistersville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Sistersville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Sistersville average
How we know this about Sistersville
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 Sistersville’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 Sistersville
When does frost risk typically end in Sistersville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Sistersville typically lands around Apr 9, 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 30.
When is the first frost in Sistersville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Sistersville typically arrives around Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 20, so the watching starts about Oct 4 — about 208 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Sistersville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Sistersville sees about 208 frost-free days — roughly Apr 9 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 30 to Oct 20, about 173 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Sistersville?
The federal record around Sistersville is a meaningful one — 175 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (95), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Sistersville?
From about Oct 4 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 3 (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 3. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Sistersville's scale — its 6b band and its 208-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Sistersville'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 Sistersville’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Sistersville's own scale — its own ~208-day season between 28°F freezes, the 336 acres it covers and 175 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Sistersville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Sistersville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 9 and Nov 3 and the ~208-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 175 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Sistersville, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Sistersville's boundary and the 336 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~208-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Sistersville's own centroid, the Western Allegheny PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Sistersville 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 Sistersville's 336 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Tyler County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Tyler 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 Tyler County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Sistersville's 336 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Sistersville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 336 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Sistersville-wide figureread your own land →
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