Tuscaloosa County, in Alabama, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Expect cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Tuscaloosa County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Tuscaloosa 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 Tuscaloosa County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Tuscaloosa County — the short answer
Tuscaloosa County, Alabama: USDA zone 8a, about 262 days between hard freezes, across 845K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~262
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 845K 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 8a is Tuscaloosa County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Tuscaloosa County's 262-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Tuscaloosa County
Across a year, Tuscaloosa County accumulates about 5,327 growing degree days above 50°F, about 43 more than the middle Alabama county — ahead of 34 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 1,293 hours below 45°F, 45 more 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 Tuscaloosa County
Across Tuscaloosa County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Smithdale, Montevallo, and Nauvoo are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a fine sandy loam 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
11%
Hydric soils
4%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Tuscaloosa County
The USDA soil survey maps 80% of Tuscaloosa County as well drained — but another 18% drains differently: 7% moderately well drained, 5% somewhat poorly drained.
Smithdale is the most extensive named soil at 29% of mapped acres, then Montevallo (15%) and Nauvoo (13%).
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 Tuscaloosa County
Each reading below is measured for Tuscaloosa 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 Tuscaloosa 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 Tuscaloosa 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
MeasuredTuscaloosa County runs about 262 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
MeasuredTuscaloosa County sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
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 Tuscaloosa County is in
Tuscaloosa County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Southeastern Plains (59%) and Southwestern Appalachians (38%). 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 Tuscaloosa County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Tuscaloosa County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 262-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 Tuscaloosa County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 5; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 22 — 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 Tuscaloosa County
- Japanese beetle10 documented records
- monarch butterfly3 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Tuscaloosa County
USGS estimates 31,875 lb of Glyphosate on Tuscaloosa County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Dicamba (7,951 lb) and 2,4-d (5,877 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 Tuscaloosa County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Tuscaloosa County — 1,073 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 12 Superfund sites (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 Tuscaloosa 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 Tuscaloosa County
Closest first, across Tuscaloosa County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Well U-23 C.L. LAMB WELL 1 Tuscaloosa Cnty ALNitrate · 700 ft
- ESTES MARINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- Well U-22 ESTES Tuscaloosa Cnty ALNitrate · 0.7 mi
- Well T-68 WILLIAM D. SMITH Tuscaloosa Cnty ALNitrate · 0.9 mi
- NORTHINGTON ONE HOUR CLEANERSBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- PERKINS CABINET SHOP & BLDG SUPPLYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- PUBLIX SUPERMARKET #75Brownfields · 1.9 mi
- MAPCO #7533Underground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- Circle K #2723733Underground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- CVS PHARMACY #7217Brownfields · 2.1 mi
- BUDDYS FOOD MART #14Underground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- Well T-85 PAUL HUDDLESTON Tuscaloosa Cnty ALNitrate · 2.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Tuscaloosa 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 Tuscaloosa County.
Total Sites
1,073
across Tuscaloosa County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
12 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Tuscaloosa County
Severity Distribution
across Tuscaloosa County
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
Check your specific parcel in Tuscaloosa 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 Tuscaloosa County average
Your land is one point inside Tuscaloosa County
Everything above resolves to Tuscaloosa County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 845K 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 Tuscaloosa County Average
Tuscaloosa County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Tuscaloosa County
- ●One soil character for all of Tuscaloosa County
- ●Frost dates read at Tuscaloosa County's scale: Mar 5 to Nov 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Tuscaloosa County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Tuscaloosa County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Tuscaloosa County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Tuscaloosa County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Tuscaloosa County average
How we know this about Tuscaloosa 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 Tuscaloosa County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Tuscaloosa County
When does frost risk typically end in Tuscaloosa County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Tuscaloosa County typically lands around Mar 5, 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 26.
How long is the growing season in Tuscaloosa County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Tuscaloosa County sees about 262 frost-free days — roughly Mar 5 through Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 26 to Nov 8, about 227 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Tuscaloosa County?
The federal record around Tuscaloosa County is a meaningful one — 1,073 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (583), the nearest Nitrate 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 Tuscaloosa County's scale — its 8a band and its 262-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Tuscaloosa 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 Tuscaloosa County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Tuscaloosa County's own scale — its own ~262-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 1,073 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Tuscaloosa County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Tuscaloosa County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~262-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Tuscaloosa CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 1,073 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 0.1 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Tuscaloosa County's boundary and the 845,352 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~262-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Tuscaloosa County spans, Southeastern Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Tuscaloosa County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Tuscaloosa 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 Tuscaloosa County — the ~262 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 Tuscaloosa County's 845,352 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 1,073 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 Tuscaloosa Countyread your own land →