Beebe, 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 Beebe, 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 Beebe 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 Beebe — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Beebe — the short answer
Beebe, Arkansas: USDA zone 8a, about 256 days between hard freezes, across 6K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~256
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 6K 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 Beebe's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Beebe's 256-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Beebe
Each reading below is measured for Beebe itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBeebe 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
MeasuredBeebe 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 Beebe is in
Beebe sits in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Beebe's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: White County is mostly Arkansas Valley. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Beebe
Every plant below cleared Beebe'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 Beebe?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 20 — 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 Beebe
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Beebe. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DOUBLEBEES #136Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- BEEBE PUBLIC SCHOOLSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- BEEBE PUBLIC SCHOOLSBrownfields · 1900 ft
- ARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY BEEBEBrownfields · 2000 ft
- JOHN HAYES TREE CLEARINGBrownfields · 2100 ft
- LARRY CHAPMANUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- J & P FLASH #129Underground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- WISDOM PAINT AND BODY SHOPBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- ADAMS TRUCK STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- MCDONALD'S BEEBE SHELL #1068Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- TIGER MART #101Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- BEEBE PUBLIC SCHOOLS BUS SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Beebe'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 Beebe.
Total Sites
141
within ~10 miles of Beebe
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Beebe
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Beebe
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Beebe, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Beebe — PFAS (5 sites) and Nitrate (38 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Beebe
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 Beebe average
Your land is one point inside Beebe
Everything above resolves to Beebe as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 6K 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 Beebe Average
Beebe Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Beebe
- ●One soil character for all of Beebe
- ●Frost dates read at Beebe's scale: Mar 9 to Nov 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Beebe's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Beebe
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Beebe, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Beebe averages can't show:
We read public map data around Beebe — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Beebe average
How we know this about Beebe
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 Beebe’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 Beebe
When does frost risk typically end in Beebe?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Beebe typically lands around Mar 9, 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 30.
When is the first frost in Beebe?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Beebe typically arrives around Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 6, so the watching starts about Oct 21 — about 256 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Beebe?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Beebe sees about 256 frost-free days — roughly Mar 9 through Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 30 to Nov 6, about 221 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Beebe?
The federal record around Beebe is a meaningful one — 141 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (79), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Beebe?
From about Oct 21 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 20 (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 20. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Beebe's scale — its 8a band and its 256-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Beebe'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 Beebe’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Beebe's own scale — its own ~256-day season between 28°F freezes, the 6,476 acres it covers and 141 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Beebe's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Beebe's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 9 and Nov 20 and the ~256-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 141 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Beebe, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Beebe's boundary and the 6,476 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~256-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Beebe sits in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Beebe's 6,476 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 Beebe's 6,476 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Beebe you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 6,476 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Beebe-wide figureread your own land →