Blue Mountain, Arkansas, 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 Blue Mountain, 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 Blue Mountain 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 Blue Mountain — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Blue Mountain — the short answer
Blue Mountain, Arkansas: USDA zone 8a, about 249 days between hard freezes, across 682 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~249
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 682 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 Blue Mountain's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Blue Mountain's 249-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Blue Mountain
Each reading below is measured for Blue Mountain itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBlue Mountain runs about 249 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
MeasuredBlue Mountain 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 Blue Mountain is in
Blue Mountain sits in the Arkansas Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Blue Mountain's own centroid rather than borrowed from Logan County.
What Grows in Blue Mountain
Every plant below cleared Blue Mountain's own zone 8a and its 249-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arkansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Blue Mountain?
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 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 12 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 16 — 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 Blue Mountain
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Blue Mountain. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 06N25W29ABB1Nitrate · 3.0 mi
- 06N25W20DCC1Nitrate · 3.1 mi
- CATLETT STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- MAGAZINE SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- MAGAZINE KMUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- US ARMY CORPS ENG-BLUE MTN PROBrownfields · 3.8 mi
- BLUE MOUNTAIN LAKE PROJECTUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- MT. VIEW GROCERY INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.9 mi
- TIPPIT GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.9 mi
- MAGAZINE PUBLIC SCHOOLSUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.0 mi
- BIG A'S CONVENIENCE STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.2 mi
- DO DROP IN GROCERY LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Blue Mountain'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 Blue Mountain.
Total Sites
23
within ~10 miles of Blue Mountain
Risk Level
Low
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Blue Mountain
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Blue Mountain
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
Check your specific parcel in Blue Mountain
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 Blue Mountain average
Your land is one point inside Blue Mountain
Everything above resolves to Blue Mountain as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 682 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 Blue Mountain Average
Blue Mountain Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Blue Mountain
- ●One soil character for all of Blue Mountain
- ●Frost dates read at Blue Mountain's scale: Mar 12 to Nov 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Blue Mountain's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Blue Mountain
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Blue Mountain, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Blue Mountain averages can't show:
We read public map data around Blue Mountain — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Blue Mountain average
How we know this about Blue Mountain
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 Blue Mountain’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 Blue Mountain
When does frost risk typically end in Blue Mountain?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Blue Mountain typically lands around Mar 12, 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 2.
When is the first frost in Blue Mountain?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Blue Mountain typically arrives around Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 2, so the watching starts about Oct 17 — about 249 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Blue Mountain?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Blue Mountain sees about 249 frost-free days — roughly Mar 12 through Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 2 to Nov 2, about 214 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Blue Mountain?
The federal record around Blue Mountain is light — 23 documented sites across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (15), the nearest Nitrate record about 3.0 miles out — and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. Growing food here starts from a strong position; a soil test before new food beds settles any site-specific question.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Blue Mountain?
From about Oct 17 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 16 (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 16. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Blue Mountain's scale — its 8a band and its 249-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Blue Mountain'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 Blue Mountain’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Blue Mountain's own scale — its own ~249-day season between 28°F freezes, the 682 acres it covers and 23 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Blue Mountain's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Blue Mountain's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 12 and Nov 16 and the ~249-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 23 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Blue Mountain, the closest Nitrate record about 3.0 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Blue Mountain's boundary and the 682 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~249-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Blue Mountain's own centroid, the Arkansas ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Blue Mountain's 682 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Logan County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Logan 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 Logan County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Blue Mountain's 682 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Blue Mountain you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 682 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 3.0 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 Blue Mountain-wide figureread your own land →
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