Crenshaw County, in Alabama, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
On paper, cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Crenshaw 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
Crenshaw County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Crenshaw 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 Crenshaw County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Crenshaw County — the short answer
Crenshaw County, Alabama: USDA zone 8b, about 272 days between hard freezes, across 390K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~272
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 390K 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 Crenshaw County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Crenshaw County's 272-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Crenshaw County
Across a year, Crenshaw County accumulates about 5,649 growing degree days above 50°F, about 365 more than the middle Alabama county — ahead of 52 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 937 hours below 45°F, 311 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 Crenshaw County
Across Crenshaw County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Orangeburg, Springhill, and Nankin are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.0–5.3, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
20%
Hydric soils
9%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Crenshaw County
The USDA soil survey maps 71% of Crenshaw County as well drained — but another 29% drains differently: 9% poorly drained, 8% somewhat poorly drained.
Orangeburg is the most extensive named soil at 11% of mapped acres, then Springhill (11%) and Nankin (10%).
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 Crenshaw County
Each reading below is measured for Crenshaw 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 Crenshaw County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — 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 Crenshaw 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
MeasuredCrenshaw County runs about 272 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
MeasuredCrenshaw 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 Crenshaw County is in
Crenshaw 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 Crenshaw County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Crenshaw County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 272-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 Crenshaw County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 27; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 24 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 23 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. And with a calendar this mild, the honest answer is that planting barely stops — winter opens seasons colder regions never see.
What gets applied to farmland in Crenshaw County
USGS estimates 10,149 lb of 2,4-d on Crenshaw County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (5,073 lb) and Dicamba (2,048 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 Crenshaw County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Crenshaw County — 170 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Crenshaw 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 Crenshaw County
Closest first, across Crenshaw County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- GROUND IMPROVEMENT POULTRY FARMSCAFO · 700 ft
- GRADY STEPHENS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- JOHN & PAULA MORGAN FARMSCAFO · 1.3 mi
- NGUYEN FARMSCAFO · 1.5 mi
- Y SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- TRIANGLE GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- FINWAY EXPRESS #507Underground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- LONNIE LESTER FARMCAFO · 2.3 mi
- RACEWAY SERVICE STATION # 822Underground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- TRIPLE H FARMSCAFO · 2.6 mi
- CRENSHAW COUNTY SCHOOL BUS SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- JONATHAN BAGENTSCAFO · 2.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Crenshaw 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 Crenshaw County.
Total Sites
170
across Crenshaw County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Crenshaw County
Severity Distribution
across Crenshaw County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Crenshaw County, CAFO runs higher than the national average — 60 sites across Crenshaw County. 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.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check your specific parcel in Crenshaw 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 Crenshaw County average
Your land is one point inside Crenshaw County
Everything above resolves to Crenshaw County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 390K 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 Crenshaw County Average
Crenshaw County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Crenshaw County
- ●One soil character for all of Crenshaw County
- ●Frost dates read at Crenshaw County's scale: Feb 24 to Nov 23
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Crenshaw County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Crenshaw County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Crenshaw County, Alabama — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Crenshaw County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Crenshaw County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Crenshaw County average
How we know this about Crenshaw 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 Crenshaw County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Crenshaw County
When does frost risk typically end in Crenshaw County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Crenshaw County typically lands around Feb 24, 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 17.
How long is the growing season in Crenshaw County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Crenshaw County sees about 272 frost-free days — roughly Feb 24 through Nov 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 17 to Nov 9, about 237 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Crenshaw County?
The federal record around Crenshaw County is a meaningful one — 170 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (93), the nearest CAFO record about 0.1 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 Crenshaw County's scale — its 8b band and its 272-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Crenshaw 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 Crenshaw County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Crenshaw County's own scale — its own ~272-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 170 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Crenshaw County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Crenshaw County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~272-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Crenshaw CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 170 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest CAFO record about 0.1 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Crenshaw County's boundary and the 389,673 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~272-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Crenshaw County sitting wholly inside the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Crenshaw 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 Crenshaw County — the ~272 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 Crenshaw County's 389,673 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 170 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 Crenshaw Countyread your own land →