Mobile County, in Alabama, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
A short list that earns its place here — artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Mobile County lies within the Gulf Coast — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Mobile County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Mobile 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 Mobile County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Mobile County — the short answer
Mobile County, Alabama: USDA zone 9a, about 297 days between hard freezes, across 787K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~297
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 787K 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 9a is Mobile County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Mobile County's 297-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Mobile County
Across a year, Mobile County accumulates about 6,238 growing degree days above 50°F, about 954 more than the middle Alabama county — ahead of 65 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 585 hours below 45°F, 663 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 Mobile County
Across Mobile County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Wadley, Heidel, and Benndale are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally somewhat excessively drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.0–5.1, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Somewhat excessively drained
Prime farmland
22%
Hydric soils
24%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Mobile County
The USDA soil survey maps 27% of Mobile County as somewhat excessively drained — but another 66% drains differently: 23% well drained, 16% moderately well drained.
Wadley is the most extensive named soil at 21% of mapped acres, then Heidel (10%) and Benndale (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 Mobile County
Each reading below is measured for Mobile 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 Mobile County are somewhat excessively drained, in hydrologic group A — 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 Mobile County runs about pH 5.0–5.1, 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
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 24% of Mobile County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredMobile County runs about 297 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
The kind of country Mobile County is in
Mobile County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Southeastern Plains (70%) and Southern Coastal Plain (30%). 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 Mobile County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Mobile County's own USDA zone 9a and its own 297-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 Mobile County?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 3 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. In a climate this gentle, “too late” hardly applies — the question becomes which crops prefer the cooler months ahead.
Documented around Mobile County
- monarch butterfly15 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Mobile County
USGS estimates 44,421 lb of Glyphosate on Mobile County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (12,905 lb) and Metolachlor-s (9,097 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 Mobile County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Mobile County — 2,265 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 29 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Mobile County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Mobile County
Closest first, across Mobile County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FRITO LAY SALES DISTRIBUTION CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 350 ft
- MOB ASRUnderground Storage Tanks · 350 ft
- PROVIDENCE HOSPITAL LABORATORYBrownfields · 1200 ft
- WALMART NEIGHBORHOOD MARKET #4648Brownfields · 1500 ft
- CIRCLE K #4472Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- WEST MOBILE OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- PROVIDENCE MEDICAL PLAZAUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- ANIKACOCO LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- PROVIDENCE HOSPITALUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- BERRY'S AUTOMOTIVE INC.Brownfields · 2500 ft
- FIRESTONE COMPLETE AUTO CARE #029173Brownfields · 2600 ft
- JAGUAR BP #1Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Mobile 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 Mobile County.
Sources Checked
across Mobile County
Severity Distribution
across Mobile County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Mobile County, two things run higher than the national average across Mobile County — Superfund (29 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (140 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Mobile 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 Mobile County average
Your land is one point inside Mobile County
Everything above resolves to Mobile County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 787K 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 Mobile County Average
Mobile County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Mobile County
- ●One soil character for all of Mobile County
- ●Frost dates read at Mobile County's scale: Feb 9 to Dec 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Mobile County's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Mobile County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Mobile County, Alabama — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Mobile County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Mobile County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mobile County average
How we know this about Mobile 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 Mobile County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Mobile County
When does frost risk typically end in Mobile County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Mobile County typically lands around Feb 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 Mar 2.
How long is the growing season in Mobile County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Mobile County sees about 297 frost-free days — roughly Feb 9 through Dec 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 2 to Nov 19, about 262 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Mobile County?
The federal record around Mobile County runs heavier than most — 2,265 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,057), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
Everything above is measured at Mobile County's scale — its 9a band and its 297-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Mobile 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 Mobile County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Mobile County's own scale — its own ~297-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 2,265 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Mobile County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Mobile County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~297-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Mobile CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 2,265 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile outFederal environmental registers
- Mobile County's boundary and the 786,804 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~297-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Mobile County spans, Southeastern Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Mobile County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Mobile 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 Mobile County — the ~297 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 Mobile County's 786,804 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 2,265 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 Mobile Countyread your own land →