Underwood-Petersville, Alabama, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
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 Underwood-Petersville, 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 Underwood-Petersville 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 Underwood-Petersville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Underwood-Petersville — the short answer
Underwood-Petersville, Alabama: USDA zone 8a, about 247 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~247
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 4K 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 Underwood-Petersville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Underwood-Petersville's 247-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Underwood-Petersville
Each reading below is measured for Underwood-Petersville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredUnderwood-Petersville runs about 247 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
MeasuredUnderwood-Petersville 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 Underwood-Petersville is in
Underwood-Petersville sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Underwood-Petersville's own centroid rather than borrowed from Lauderdale County.
What Grows in Underwood-Petersville
Every plant below cleared Underwood-Petersville's own zone 8a and its 247-day season. Each card opens that plant's Alabama profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Underwood-Petersville?
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 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 15 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
What's on the federal record near Underwood-Petersville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Underwood-Petersville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FIVE POINTS MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- QUIK STOP MARKET CHEVRON #16Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- WILLETT SELF SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- UNDERWOOD-PETERSVILLE VOLUNTEER FDUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- STONE FEED COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- BAMA PITT #6Underground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- QUIK MART #42 SHELLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- TATUM Q GAS PETERSVILLEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- DIXIE OIL CO #94Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- Well O-177 USGS Lauderdale Cnty ALNitrate · 1.4 mi
- MAPCO DELTA EXPRESS # 5217Underground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- IMPERIAL CASTING CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Underwood-Petersville'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 Underwood-Petersville.
Total Sites
590
within ~10 miles of Underwood-Petersville
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
14 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Underwood-Petersville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Underwood-Petersville
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Underwood-Petersville, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 14 sites within ~10 miles of Underwood-Petersville. 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 Underwood-Petersville
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 Underwood-Petersville average
Your land is one point inside Underwood-Petersville
Everything above resolves to Underwood-Petersville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 Underwood-Petersville Average
Underwood-Petersville Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Underwood-Petersville
- ●One soil character for all of Underwood-Petersville
- ●Frost dates read at Underwood-Petersville's scale: Mar 13 to Nov 15
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Underwood-Petersville's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Underwood-Petersville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Underwood-Petersville, Alabama — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Underwood-Petersville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Underwood-Petersville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Underwood-Petersville average
How we know this about Underwood-Petersville
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 Underwood-Petersville’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 Underwood-Petersville
When does frost risk typically end in Underwood-Petersville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Underwood-Petersville typically lands around Mar 13, 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 3.
When is the first frost in Underwood-Petersville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Underwood-Petersville typically arrives around Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 1, so the watching starts about Oct 16 — about 247 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Underwood-Petersville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Underwood-Petersville sees about 247 frost-free days — roughly Mar 13 through Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 3 to Nov 1, about 212 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Underwood-Petersville?
The federal record around Underwood-Petersville is a meaningful one — 590 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (354), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Underwood-Petersville?
From about Oct 16 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 15 (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 15. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Underwood-Petersville's scale — its 8a band and its 247-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Underwood-Petersville'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 Underwood-Petersville’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Underwood-Petersville's own scale — its own ~247-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,709 acres it covers and 590 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Underwood-Petersville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Underwood-Petersville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 13 and Nov 15 and the ~247-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 590 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Underwood-Petersville, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Underwood-Petersville's boundary and the 3,709 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~247-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Underwood-Petersville's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Underwood-Petersville's 3,709 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Lauderdale County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Lauderdale 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 Lauderdale County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Underwood-Petersville's 3,709 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Underwood-Petersville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,709 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Underwood-Petersville-wide figureread your own land →