Desha County, in Arkansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
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.
Desha 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
Desha County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Desha 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 Desha County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Desha County — the short answer
Desha County, Arkansas: USDA zone 8b, about 280 days between hard freezes, across 474K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~280
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 474K 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 Desha County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Desha County's 280-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Desha County
Across a year, Desha County accumulates about 5,336 growing degree days above 50°F, about 530 more than the middle Arkansas county — ahead of 66 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 1,321 hours below 45°F, 459 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 Desha County
Across Desha County, the ground is predominantly Vertisols, where Sharkey, Desha, and Hebert are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a clay surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.6–7.0, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Vertisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
18%
Hydric soils
55%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Desha County
The USDA soil survey maps 61% of Desha County as poorly drained — but another 29% drains differently: 21% somewhat poorly drained, 8% well drained.
Sharkey is the most extensive named soil at 39% of mapped acres, then Desha (19%) and Hebert (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 Desha County
Each reading below is measured for Desha 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 Desha 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 Desha County runs about pH 5.6–7.0, 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
MeasuredDesha County runs about 280 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
MeasuredDesha 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 Desha County is in
Desha 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 Desha County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Desha County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 280-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 Desha County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 20 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 27 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. And with a calendar this mild, the honest answer is that planting barely stops — winter opens seasons colder regions never see.
Documented around Desha County
- monarch butterfly41 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Desha County
USGS estimates 321,145 lb of Glyphosate on Desha County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (237,155 lb) and Metolachlor-s (177,713 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 Desha County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Desha County — 369 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Desha 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 Desha County
Closest first, across Desha County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 10S02W13DCB1Nitrate · 850 ft
- 10S02W12CDD1Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- CLEO WELLSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- 10S02W23CAC2Nitrate · 1.2 mi
- 10S01W07CBB1Nitrate · 1.2 mi
- 10S02W23DCD1Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- 10S03W26ACC1Nitrate · 2.0 mi
- 10S03W27DBA1Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- 10S02W02DBB1Nitrate · 2.3 mi
- 10S02W25DDC2Nitrate · 2.4 mi
- AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SERVICE - KELSOSuperfund · 2.7 mi
- 10S02W02AAA1Nitrate · 2.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Desha 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 Desha County.
Total Sites
369
across Desha County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Desha County
Severity Distribution
across Desha County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Desha County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 242 sites across Desha 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 Desha 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 Desha County average
Your land is one point inside Desha County
Everything above resolves to Desha County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 474K 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 Desha County Average
Desha County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Desha County
- ●One soil character for all of Desha County
- ●Frost dates read at Desha County's scale: Feb 20 to Nov 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Desha County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Desha County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Desha County, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Desha County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Desha County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Desha County average
How we know this about Desha 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 Desha County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Desha County
When does frost risk typically end in Desha County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Desha County typically lands around Feb 20, 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 13.
How long is the growing season in Desha County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Desha County sees about 280 frost-free days — roughly Feb 20 through Nov 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 13 to Nov 13, about 245 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Desha County?
The federal record around Desha County is a meaningful one — 369 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (242), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.2 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 Desha County's scale — its 8b band and its 280-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Desha 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 Desha County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Desha County's own scale — its own ~280-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 369 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Desha County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Desha County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~280-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Desha CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 369 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 0.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Desha County's boundary and the 474,385 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~280-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Desha County sitting wholly inside the Mississippi Alluvial PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Desha County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Desha 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 Desha County — the ~280 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 Desha County's 474,385 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 369 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 Desha Countyread your own land →