Chicot County, in Arkansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Chicot County lies within the Mississippi Delta — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Chicot County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Chicot 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 Chicot County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Chicot County — the short answer
Chicot County, Arkansas: USDA zone 8b, about 284 days between hard freezes, across 408K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~284
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 408K 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 Chicot County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Chicot County's 284-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Chicot County
Across a year, Chicot County accumulates about 5,597 growing degree days above 50°F, about 791 more than the middle Arkansas county — ahead of every other Arkansas county. 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 1,149 hours below 45°F, 631 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 Chicot County
Across Chicot County, the ground is predominantly Vertisols, where Perry, Sharkey, and Commerce are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a clay surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.3–6.8, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Vertisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
13%
Hydric soils
64%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Chicot County
The USDA soil survey maps 52% of Chicot County as poorly drained — but another 34% drains differently: 28% somewhat poorly drained, 3% well drained.
Perry is the most extensive named soil at 31% of mapped acres, then Sharkey (27%) and Commerce (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 Chicot County
Each reading below is measured for Chicot 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 Chicot County are poorly drained, in hydrologic group 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 Chicot County runs about pH 5.3–6.8, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredChicot County runs about 284 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
MeasuredChicot 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 Chicot County is in
Chicot County sits in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Chicot County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Chicot County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 284-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 Chicot 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 Jan 22; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 19 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 30 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
Documented around Chicot County
- monarch butterfly2 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Chicot County
USGS estimates 316,506 lb of Glyphosate on Chicot County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (235,755 lb) and Metolachlor-s (180,630 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 Chicot County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Chicot County — 171 documented sites across 4 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Toxics Release Inventory facility. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Chicot County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Chicot County
Closest first, across Chicot County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 16S02W28DBB1Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- RICK'S EXPRESSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- BILLUPS STATION 6510Underground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- LIVINGSTON'S SPORT CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- WATERWAY MARINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- MCHAN'S GULF SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- AL'S TRUCK STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- THE COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- BOSTICK - WEBB STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- CHICOT MEMORIAL MEDICAL CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- SCOTT PETROLEUM CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Chicot 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 Chicot County.
Total Sites
171
across Chicot County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
across Chicot County
Severity Distribution
across Chicot County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Chicot County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 96 sites across Chicot County. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Chicot 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 Chicot County average
Your land is one point inside Chicot County
Everything above resolves to Chicot County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 408K 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 Chicot County Average
Chicot County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Chicot County
- ●One soil character for all of Chicot County
- ●Frost dates read at Chicot County's scale: Feb 19 to Nov 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Chicot County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Chicot County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Chicot County, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Chicot County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Chicot County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Chicot County average
How we know this about Chicot 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 Chicot County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Chicot County
When does frost risk typically end in Chicot County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Chicot County typically lands around Feb 19, 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 12.
How long is the growing season in Chicot County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Chicot County sees about 284 frost-free days — roughly Feb 19 through Nov 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 12 to Nov 16, about 249 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Chicot County?
The federal record around Chicot County shows 171 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (96), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.9 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.
Everything above is measured at Chicot County's scale — its 8b band and its 284-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Chicot 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 Chicot County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Chicot County's own scale — its own ~284-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 171 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Chicot County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Chicot County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~284-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Chicot CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 171 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 0.9 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Chicot County's boundary and the 407,665 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~284-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Chicot County sitting wholly inside the Mississippi Alluvial PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Chicot County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Chicot 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 Chicot County — the ~284 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 Chicot County's 407,665 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 171 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 Chicot Countyread your own land →