Bradley County, in Arkansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
These conditions suit cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Bradley County lies within the West Gulf Coastal Plain (South Arkansas) — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Bradley County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Bradley County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Bradley County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Bradley County — the short answer
Bradley County, Arkansas: USDA zone 8b, about 263 days between hard freezes, across 415K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~263
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 415K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 8b is Bradley County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bradley County's 263-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Bradley County
Across a year, Bradley County accumulates about 5,229 growing degree days above 50°F, about 423 more than the middle Arkansas county — ahead of 63 of Arkansas’s 75 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Winter banks about 1,422 hours below 45°F, 358 fewer than the Arkansas middle of 1,780. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Bradley County
Across Bradley County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Amy, Bibb, and Savannah are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.3, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C/D soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
27%
Hydric soils
55%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Bradley County
The USDA soil survey maps 54% of Bradley County as poorly drained — but another 45% drains differently: 22% moderately well drained, 14% somewhat poorly drained.
Amy is the most extensive named soil at 20% of mapped acres, then Bibb (18%) and Savannah (9%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Bradley County
Each reading below is measured for Bradley County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Bradley County are poorly drained, in hydrologic group C/D — ground that sheds water slowly.
Beds can stay saturated for days after heavy rain, and the roots of most vegetables, berries, and fruit trees suffocate or rot in soil that never drains.
Raised beds or mounded rows lift roots above the wet zone; choose water-tolerant crops for the lowest spots.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Bradley County runs about pH 5.3, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredBradley County runs about 263 days between hard freezes — close to year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredBradley County sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b.
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 Bradley County is in
Bradley County sits in the South Central Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Bradley County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Bradley County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 263-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Arkansas profile.
Is it too late to plant in Bradley County?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 3 (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. Here the calendar nearly circles: cool-season crops take the winter shift, and the next window is always close.
Documented around Bradley County
- monarch butterfly41 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Bradley County
USGS estimates 1,605 lb of 2,4-d on Bradley County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (304 lb) and Triclopyr (297 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Bradley County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Bradley County — 209 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 5 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
There's a meaningful federal record across Bradley County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Bradley County
Closest first, across Bradley County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- AHTD ABANDONEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- HERMITAGE PUBLIC SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- 14S10W31DBB1Nitrate · 1.1 mi
- 14S10W31DBA1Nitrate · 1.2 mi
- N. & W. OIL COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- WILLIAM'S STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- BRUCE CASH'S STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- DEES GULFUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- HERMITAGE SHELLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- HERMITAGE WORSHIP CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- 14S11W13ADD1Nitrate · 2.2 mi
- ENTERPRISE PRODUCTS OPERATING LLC - WARREN PUMP STATIONBrownfields · 2.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bradley County'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 Bradley County.
Total Sites
209
across Bradley County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
5 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Bradley County
Severity Distribution
across Bradley County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bradley County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 128 sites across Bradley County. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Bradley County
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 Bradley County average
Your land is one point inside Bradley County
Everything above resolves to Bradley County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 415K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Bradley County Average
Bradley County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Bradley County
- ●One soil character for all of Bradley County
- ●Frost dates read at Bradley County's scale: Mar 3 to Nov 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bradley County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Bradley County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bradley County, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bradley County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bradley County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bradley County average
How we know this about Bradley County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Bradley County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Bradley County
When does frost risk typically end in Bradley County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bradley County typically lands around Mar 3, 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 24.
How long is the growing season in Bradley County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bradley County sees about 263 frost-free days — roughly Mar 3 through Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 24 to Nov 7, about 228 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bradley County?
The federal record around Bradley County is a meaningful one — 209 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (128), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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.
Everything above is measured at Bradley County's scale — its 8b band and its 263-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bradley County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Arkansas's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Bradley County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Bradley County's own scale — its own ~263-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 209 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bradley County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bradley County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~263-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Bradley CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 209 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Bradley County's boundary and the 415,467 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~263-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Bradley County sitting wholly inside the South Central PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Bradley County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Bradley County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Arkansas grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Arkansas
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Bradley County — the ~263 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bradley County's 415,467 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 209 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Bradley Countyread your own land →