Prairie County, in 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.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Prairie 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
Prairie County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Prairie 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 Prairie County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Prairie County — the short answer
Prairie County, Arkansas: USDA zone 8a, about 274 days between hard freezes, across 414K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~274
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 414K 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 8a is Prairie County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Prairie County's 274-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Prairie County
Across a year, Prairie County accumulates about 5,029 growing degree days above 50°F, about 223 more than the middle Arkansas county — ahead of 49 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 1,669 hours below 45°F, 111 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 Prairie County
Across Prairie County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Immanuel, Dewitt, and Calhoun are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.3–5.6, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C/D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
47%
Hydric soils
48%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Prairie County
The USDA soil survey maps 45% of Prairie County as poorly drained — but another 49% drains differently: 24% moderately well drained, 22% somewhat poorly drained.
Immanuel is the most extensive named soil at 19% of mapped acres, then Dewitt (14%) and Calhoun (13%).
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 Prairie County
Each reading below is measured for Prairie 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 Prairie 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 Prairie County runs about pH 5.3–5.6, 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
MeasuredPrairie County runs about 274 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
MeasuredPrairie County 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 Prairie County is in
Prairie 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 Prairie County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Prairie County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 274-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 Prairie County?
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 Jan 29; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 26 (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. In a climate this gentle, “too late” hardly applies — the question becomes which crops prefer the cooler months ahead.
Documented around Prairie County
- monarch butterfly2 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Prairie County
USGS estimates 137,829 lb of Glyphosate on Prairie County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (101,313 lb) and Metolachlor-s (68,508 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 Prairie County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Prairie County — 179 documented sites across 5 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 Prairie 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 Prairie County
Closest first, across Prairie County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- B-B-F OIL COMPANY #13Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- FAST TRAX HAZENUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- RON'S FULL SERVICE 66Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- STALLINGSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- I-40 EXXON R/S 50737Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- HAZEN SUPERSTOP #88Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- HAZEN CITGO T RICKSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- 03N05W31CBB1Nitrate · 1.8 mi
- 03N05W19DDC1Nitrate · 2.3 mi
- ROLLING MEADOWS LANDFILL INCToxics Release Inventory · 2.4 mi
- STERICYCLE @ PRAIRIE COUNTYBrownfields · 2.8 mi
- HAZEN POWDER PARTS, LLCToxics Release Inventory · 2.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Prairie 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 Prairie County.
Total Sites
179
across Prairie County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Prairie County
Severity Distribution
across Prairie County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Prairie County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 122 sites across Prairie 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 Prairie 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 Prairie County average
Your land is one point inside Prairie County
Everything above resolves to Prairie County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 414K 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 Prairie County Average
Prairie County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Prairie County
- ●One soil character for all of Prairie County
- ●Frost dates read at Prairie County's scale: Feb 26 to Nov 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Prairie County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Prairie County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Prairie County, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Prairie County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Prairie County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Prairie County average
How we know this about Prairie 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 Prairie County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Prairie County
When does frost risk typically end in Prairie County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Prairie County typically lands around Feb 26, 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 19.
How long is the growing season in Prairie County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Prairie County sees about 274 frost-free days — roughly Feb 26 through Nov 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 19 to Nov 13, about 239 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Prairie County?
The federal record around Prairie County is a meaningful one — 179 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (122), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.0 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 Prairie County's scale — its 8a band and its 274-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Prairie 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 Prairie County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Prairie County's own scale — its own ~274-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 179 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Prairie County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Prairie County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~274-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Prairie CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 179 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.0 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Prairie County's boundary and the 414,410 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~274-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Prairie County sitting wholly inside the Mississippi Alluvial PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Prairie County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Prairie 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 Prairie County — the ~274 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 Prairie County's 414,410 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 179 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 Prairie Countyread your own land →