Moores Mill, Alabama, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
On paper, cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Moores Mill, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Moores Mill lot. 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 Moores Mill — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Moores Mill — the short answer
Moores Mill, Alabama: USDA zone 8a, about 240 days between hard freezes, across 9K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~240
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 9K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 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 Moores Mill's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Moores Mill's 240-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Moores Mill
Each reading below is measured for Moores Mill itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMoores Mill runs about 240 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredMoores Mill 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 Moores Mill is in
Moores Mill sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Moores Mill's own centroid rather than borrowed from Madison County.
What Grows in Moores Mill
Every plant below cleared Moores Mill's own zone 8a and its 240-day season. Each card opens that plant's Alabama profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Moores Mill?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 16; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 16 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 11 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
What's on the federal record near Moores Mill
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Moores Mill. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- EHR-LUS13Nitrate · 1800 ft
- EHR-SUS19Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- VULCAN MOORES MILL FOOD MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- H&H ENTERPRISES, LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- FAMILY MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- EHR-LUS12Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- YULISTA INTEGRATED SOLUTIONS, INC.Brownfields · 2.0 mi
- NORTH HUNTSVILLE AIRPORT (M-82)Underground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- Well EHR-LUS38 Madison Cnty ALNitrate · 2.3 mi
- MOORES MILL SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- MAPCO #7528Underground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- JTC TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Moores Mill'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 Moores Mill.
Total Sites
497
within ~10 miles of Moores Mill
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
5 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Moores Mill
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Moores Mill
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Moores Mill
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 Moores Mill average
Your land is one point inside Moores Mill
Everything above resolves to Moores Mill as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 9K 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 town 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 local average.
Your Lot vs the Moores Mill Average
Moores Mill Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Moores Mill
- ●One soil character for all of Moores Mill
- ●Frost dates read at Moores Mill's scale: Mar 16 to Nov 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Moores Mill's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Moores Mill
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Moores Mill, Alabama — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Moores Mill averages can't show:
We read public map data around Moores Mill — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Moores Mill average
How we know this about Moores Mill
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Moores Mill’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Moores Mill
When does frost risk typically end in Moores Mill?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Moores Mill typically lands around Mar 16, 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 Apr 6.
When is the first frost in Moores Mill?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Moores Mill typically arrives around Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 28, so the watching starts about Oct 12 — about 240 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Moores Mill?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Moores Mill sees about 240 frost-free days — roughly Mar 16 through Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 6 to Oct 28, about 205 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Moores Mill?
The federal record around Moores Mill is a meaningful one — 497 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (291), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.3 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Moores Mill?
From about Oct 12 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Nov 11 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Nov 11. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Moores Mill's scale — its 8a band and its 240-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Moores Mill's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Moores Mill’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Moores Mill's own scale — its own ~240-day season between 28°F freezes, the 8,698 acres it covers and 497 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Moores Mill's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Moores Mill's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 16 and Nov 11 and the ~240-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 497 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Moores Mill, the closest Nitrate record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Moores Mill's boundary and the 8,698 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~240-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Moores Mill's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Moores Mill's 8,698 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Madison County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Madison County
- The growing challenges every Alabama grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Alabama
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Madison County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Moores Mill's 8,698 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Moores Mill you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 8,698 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.3 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Moores Mill-wide figureread your own land →