Elmore County, in Alabama, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Elmore County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Elmore 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 Elmore County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Elmore County — the short answer
Elmore County, Alabama: USDA zone 8b, about 271 days between hard freezes, across 396K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~271
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 396K 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 Elmore County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Elmore County's 271-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Elmore County
Across a year, Elmore County accumulates about 5,484 growing degree days above 50°F, about 200 more than the middle Alabama county — ahead of 45 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 1,071 hours below 45°F, 177 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 Elmore County
Across Elmore County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Tallapoosa, Cataula, and Gilead are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.0–5.5, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
36%
Hydric soils
4%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Elmore County
The USDA soil survey maps 59% of Elmore County as well drained — but another 35% drains differently: 12% somewhat poorly drained, 11% moderately well drained.
Tallapoosa is the most extensive named soil at 7% of mapped acres, then Cataula (7%) and Gilead (6%).
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 Elmore County
Each reading below is measured for Elmore 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 Elmore 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 Elmore County runs about pH 5.0–5.5, 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
MeasuredElmore County runs about 271 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
MeasuredElmore 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 Elmore County is in
Elmore County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Southeastern Plains (65%) and Piedmont (35%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Elmore County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Elmore County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 271-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 Elmore County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 31; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 26 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
Documented around Elmore County
- monarch butterfly15 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Elmore County
USGS estimates 24,426 lb of Glyphosate on Elmore County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (10,172 lb) and Dicamba (7,716 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 Elmore County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Elmore County — 374 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 11 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
There's a meaningful federal record across Elmore 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 Elmore County
Closest first, across Elmore County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BETTYS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- JON BOYS STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- GEORGIA RD GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- BUMPERS LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- FOUR WAY MARKET (SHELL)Underground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- CORN CREEK CONVENIENCE STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
- R & J GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
- HOLTVILLE WATER SYSTEMPFAS · 3.4 mi
- ELMORE WATER & SEWER AUTHORITYPFAS · 3.4 mi
- WETUMPKA WATER WORKS & SEWER BOARDPFAS · 3.4 mi
- SIKES COMPOSITES CORPORATIONToxics Release Inventory · 3.4 mi
- THERMAMASTERS, LLC.Toxics Release Inventory · 3.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Elmore 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 Elmore County.
Total Sites
374
across Elmore County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
11 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Elmore County
Severity Distribution
across Elmore County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Elmore County, two things run higher than the national average across Elmore County — PFAS (9 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (242 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Elmore 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 Elmore County average
Your land is one point inside Elmore County
Everything above resolves to Elmore County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 396K 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 Elmore County Average
Elmore County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Elmore County
- ●One soil character for all of Elmore County
- ●Frost dates read at Elmore County's scale: Feb 28 to Nov 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Elmore County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Elmore County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Elmore County, Alabama — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Elmore County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Elmore County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Elmore County average
How we know this about Elmore 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 Elmore County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Elmore County
When does frost risk typically end in Elmore County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Elmore County typically lands around Feb 28, 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 21.
How long is the growing season in Elmore County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Elmore County sees about 271 frost-free days — roughly Feb 28 through Nov 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 21 to Nov 12, about 236 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Elmore County?
The federal record around Elmore County is a meaningful one — 374 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (242), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 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 Elmore County's scale — its 8b band and its 271-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Elmore 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 Elmore County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Elmore County's own scale — its own ~271-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 374 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Elmore County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Elmore County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~271-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Elmore CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 374 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Elmore County's boundary and the 395,852 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~271-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Elmore County spans, Southeastern Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Elmore County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Elmore 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 Elmore County — the ~271 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 Elmore County's 395,852 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 374 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 Elmore Countyread your own land →