Bald Knob, Arkansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Growers here do well with cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Bald Knob, 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 Bald Knob 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 Bald Knob — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Bald Knob — the short answer
Bald Knob, Arkansas: USDA zone 8a, about 256 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~256
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 3K 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 Bald Knob's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bald Knob's 256-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Bald Knob
Each reading below is measured for Bald Knob itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBald Knob runs about 256 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
MeasuredBald Knob 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 Bald Knob is in
Bald Knob sits in the Arkansas Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Bald Knob's own centroid rather than borrowed from White County.
What Grows in Bald Knob
Every plant below cleared Bald Knob's own zone 8a and its 256-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arkansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Bald Knob?
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 Feb 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 21 — 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 Bald Knob
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Bald Knob. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BALD KNOB SCHOOL DISTRICTUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- BALD KNOBUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- PETERSON, MARYUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- BALD KNOB U-SERVEUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- D-X SUNRAY ABANDONED GAS STAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- TOOLCRAFT MACHINE & TOOL INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- TOBACCO SUPERSTORE BALD KNOBUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- JIFFY JERRY'SUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- FRANKIE'SUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- EXXON STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- BALD KNOB TEXACO STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- BALD KNOB SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bald Knob'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 Bald Knob.
Total Sites
149
within ~10 miles of Bald Knob
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
6 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Bald Knob
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Bald Knob
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 Bald Knob
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 Bald Knob average
Your land is one point inside Bald Knob
Everything above resolves to Bald Knob as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Bald Knob Average
Bald Knob Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Bald Knob
- ●One soil character for all of Bald Knob
- ●Frost dates read at Bald Knob's scale: Mar 10 to Nov 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bald Knob's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Bald Knob
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bald Knob, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bald Knob averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bald Knob — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bald Knob average
How we know this about Bald Knob
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 Bald Knob’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 Bald Knob
When does frost risk typically end in Bald Knob?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bald Knob typically lands around Mar 10, 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 31.
When is the first frost in Bald Knob?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Bald Knob typically arrives around Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 7, so the watching starts about Oct 22 — about 256 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Bald Knob?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bald Knob sees about 256 frost-free days — roughly Mar 10 through Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 31 to Nov 7, about 221 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bald Knob?
The federal record around Bald Knob shows 149 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (90), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Bald Knob?
From about Oct 22 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 21 (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 21. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Bald Knob's scale — its 8a band and its 256-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bald Knob'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 Bald Knob’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Bald Knob's own scale — its own ~256-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,171 acres it covers and 149 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bald Knob's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bald Knob's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 10 and Nov 21 and the ~256-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 149 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Bald Knob, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Bald Knob's boundary and the 3,171 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~256-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Bald Knob's own centroid, the Arkansas ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Bald Knob's 3,171 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom White County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom White County
- The growing challenges every Arkansas grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Arkansas
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom White County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bald Knob's 3,171 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Bald Knob you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,171 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 Bald Knob-wide figureread your own land →
More in Arkansas
Wider growing context
What grows across ArkansasBald Knob sits outside our named growing regions, so Arkansas as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides