Owens Cross Roads, 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.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Owens Cross Roads, 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 Owens Cross Roads 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 Owens Cross Roads — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Owens Cross Roads — the short answer
Owens Cross Roads, Alabama: USDA zone 8a, about 240 days between hard freezes, across 5K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~240
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 5K 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 Owens Cross Roads's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Owens Cross Roads's 240-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Owens Cross Roads
Each reading below is measured for Owens Cross Roads itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredOwens Cross Roads 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
MeasuredOwens Cross Roads 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 Owens Cross Roads is in
Owens Cross Roads sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Owens Cross Roads's own centroid rather than borrowed from Madison County.
What Grows in Owens Cross Roads
Every plant below cleared Owens Cross Roads'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 Owens Cross Roads?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 17; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 17 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 12 — 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 Owens Cross Roads
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Owens Cross Roads. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- OWENS CROSS ROADS SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- OWENS CROSS ROADS BP (CAMPBELLS)Underground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- CIRCLE K 2709065Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- TOWN OF OWENS CROSS ROADUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- BESIDE BROWN BAG GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- BRITTON OIL # 80Underground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- OWENS CROSSROADS WATER AUTHORITYPFAS · 2.1 mi
- BROWN AND FURLOUGH WRECKER SERVICEBrownfields · 2.4 mi
- MEEKS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- REPUBLIC SERVICESUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- HUBBARD SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- DOLLAR GENERAL 1680Underground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Owens Cross Roads'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 Owens Cross Roads.
Total Sites
240
within ~10 miles of Owens Cross Roads
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Owens Cross Roads
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Owens Cross Roads
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Owens Cross Roads, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 3 sites within ~10 miles of Owens Cross Roads. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Owens Cross Roads
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 Owens Cross Roads average
Your land is one point inside Owens Cross Roads
Everything above resolves to Owens Cross Roads as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 5K 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 city 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 Owens Cross Roads Average
Owens Cross Roads Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Owens Cross Roads
- ●One soil character for all of Owens Cross Roads
- ●Frost dates read at Owens Cross Roads's scale: Mar 17 to Nov 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Owens Cross Roads's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Owens Cross Roads
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Owens Cross Roads, Alabama — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Owens Cross Roads averages can't show:
We read public map data around Owens Cross Roads — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Owens Cross Roads average
How we know this about Owens Cross Roads
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Owens Cross Roads’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Owens Cross Roads
When does frost risk typically end in Owens Cross Roads?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Owens Cross Roads typically lands around Mar 17, 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 7.
When is the first frost in Owens Cross Roads?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Owens Cross Roads typically arrives around Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 29, so the watching starts about Oct 13 — about 240 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Owens Cross Roads?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Owens Cross Roads sees about 240 frost-free days — roughly Mar 17 through Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 7 to Oct 29, about 205 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Owens Cross Roads?
The federal record around Owens Cross Roads is a meaningful one — 240 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (140), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Owens Cross Roads?
From about Oct 13 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 12 (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 12. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Owens Cross Roads's scale — its 8a band and its 240-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Owens Cross Roads'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 Owens Cross Roads’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Owens Cross Roads's own scale — its own ~240-day season between 28°F freezes, the 5,053 acres it covers and 240 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Owens Cross Roads's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Owens Cross Roads's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 17 and Nov 12 and the ~240-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 240 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Owens Cross Roads, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Owens Cross Roads's boundary and the 5,053 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 Owens Cross Roads's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Owens Cross Roads's 5,053 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 Owens Cross Roads's 5,053 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Owens Cross Roads you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 5,053 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Owens Cross Roads-wide figureread your own land →