Barbour County, in Alabama, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Growers here do well with cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Barbour County lies within the Wiregrass Region (Southeast Alabama) and the Black Belt — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Barbour County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Barbour County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Barbour County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Barbour County — the short answer
Barbour County, Alabama: USDA zone 8b, about 270 days between hard freezes, across 566K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~270
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 566K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 8b is Barbour County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Barbour County's 270-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Barbour County
Across a year, Barbour County accumulates about 5,501 growing degree days above 50°F, about 217 more than the middle Alabama county — ahead of 46 of Alabama’s 67 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Winter banks about 983 hours below 45°F, 265 fewer than the Alabama middle of 1,248. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Barbour County
Across Barbour County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Springhill, Cowarts, and Luverne are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a loamy sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.0–5.3, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
14%
Hydric soils
7%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Barbour County
The USDA soil survey maps 74% of Barbour County as well drained — but another 24% drains differently: 14% moderately well drained, 7% somewhat poorly drained.
Springhill is the most extensive named soil at 13% of mapped acres, then Cowarts (12%) and Luverne (9%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Barbour County
Each reading below is measured for Barbour County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Barbour County are well drained, in hydrologic group B — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Barbour County runs about pH 5.0–5.3, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredBarbour County runs about 270 days between hard freezes — close to year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredBarbour County sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b.
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 Barbour County is in
Barbour County sits in the Southeastern Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Barbour County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Barbour County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 270-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Alabama profile.
Is it too late to plant in Barbour County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 2; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 27 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the calendar nearly circles: cool-season crops take the winter shift, and the next window is always close.
What gets applied to farmland in Barbour County
USGS estimates 18,633 lb of Glyphosate on Barbour County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (12,432 lb) and Dicamba (6,180 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Barbour County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Barbour County — 282 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 19 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
There's a meaningful federal record across Barbour County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Barbour County
Closest first, across Barbour County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Well S 10 315155085261401 Barbour County AlNitrate · 1.0 mi
- BOYD BROTHERS TRANSPORTATION CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- HILTON COOPER CONTRACTINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- GLENN'S GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- CHILDS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- BARBOUR COUNTY MAINTENANCE SHOPBrownfields · 2.3 mi
- M&W AUTO SERVICE LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- CLAYTON MAIN - 12716Underground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- CLAY'S PETROUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- SPIRES AMOCO SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- SUPERIOR OIL BULK PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- GULLEDGE UNION 76 STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Barbour County'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 Barbour County.
Total Sites
282
across Barbour County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
19 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Barbour County
Severity Distribution
across Barbour County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Barbour County, two things run higher than the national average across Barbour County — CAFO (72 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (19 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Barbour County
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 Barbour County average
Your land is one point inside Barbour County
Everything above resolves to Barbour County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 566K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Barbour County Average
Barbour County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Barbour County
- ●One soil character for all of Barbour County
- ●Frost dates read at Barbour County's scale: Mar 2 to Nov 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Barbour County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Barbour County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Barbour County, Alabama — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Barbour County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Barbour County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Barbour County average
How we know this about Barbour County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Barbour County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Barbour County
When does frost risk typically end in Barbour County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Barbour County typically lands around Mar 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 Mar 23.
How long is the growing season in Barbour County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Barbour County sees about 270 frost-free days — roughly Mar 2 through Nov 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 23 to Nov 13, about 235 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Barbour County?
The federal record around Barbour County is a meaningful one — 282 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (126), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.0 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.
Everything above is measured at Barbour County's scale — its 8b band and its 270-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Barbour County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Alabama's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Barbour County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Barbour County's own scale — its own ~270-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 282 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Barbour County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Barbour County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~270-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Barbour CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 282 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 1.0 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Barbour County's boundary and the 566,405 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~270-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Barbour County sitting wholly inside the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Barbour County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Alabama grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Alabama
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Barbour County — the ~270 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Barbour County's 566,405 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 282 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Barbour Countyread your own land →