Lockesburg, Arkansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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 Lockesburg, 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 Lockesburg 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 Lockesburg — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Lockesburg — the short answer
Lockesburg, Arkansas: USDA zone 8a, about 248 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~248
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 2K 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 Lockesburg's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lockesburg's 248-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lockesburg
Each reading below is measured for Lockesburg itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLockesburg runs about 248 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
MeasuredLockesburg 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 Lockesburg is in
Lockesburg sits in the South Central Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Lockesburg's own centroid rather than borrowed from Sevier County.
What Grows in Lockesburg
Every plant below cleared Lockesburg's own zone 8a and its 248-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arkansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lockesburg?
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 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 14 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 17 — 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 Lockesburg
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lockesburg. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- LOCKESBURG SCHOOL DISTRICT 16Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- BRADSHAW GROCERY & STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- PREV. BRAZOS TRANSPORT COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- JOHN'S CONOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- EZ MART #4447Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- 09S30W23BDD2Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- SEVIER COUNTY FARMERS COOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- 09S30W35BBB1Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- ARK-LA-TEX AREA HEADQUARTERSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- 09S30W27DAA1Nitrate · 1.9 mi
- 09S30W26CBC1Nitrate · 1.9 mi
- 09S30W27DCA1Nitrate · 1.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lockesburg'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 Lockesburg.
Total Sites
61
within ~10 miles of Lockesburg
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lockesburg
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lockesburg
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lockesburg, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 22 sites within ~10 miles of Lockesburg. 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 Lockesburg
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 Lockesburg average
Your land is one point inside Lockesburg
Everything above resolves to Lockesburg as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 city 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 Lockesburg Average
Lockesburg Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Lockesburg
- ●One soil character for all of Lockesburg
- ●Frost dates read at Lockesburg's scale: Mar 14 to Nov 17
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lockesburg's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lockesburg
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lockesburg, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lockesburg averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lockesburg — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lockesburg average
How we know this about Lockesburg
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Lockesburg’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Lockesburg
When does frost risk typically end in Lockesburg?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lockesburg typically lands around Mar 14, 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 4.
When is the first frost in Lockesburg?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lockesburg typically arrives around Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 3, so the watching starts about Oct 18 — about 248 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lockesburg?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lockesburg sees about 248 frost-free days — roughly Mar 14 through Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 4 to Nov 3, about 213 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lockesburg?
The federal record around Lockesburg shows 61 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (29), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Lockesburg?
From about Oct 18 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 17 (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 17. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Lockesburg's scale — its 8a band and its 248-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lockesburg'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 Lockesburg’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Lockesburg's own scale — its own ~248-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,230 acres it covers and 61 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lockesburg's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lockesburg's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 14 and Nov 17 and the ~248-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 61 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lockesburg, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lockesburg's boundary and the 2,230 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~248-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Lockesburg's own centroid, the South Central PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Lockesburg's 2,230 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Sevier County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Sevier 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 Sevier County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Lockesburg's 2,230 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lockesburg you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,230 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 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 Lockesburg-wide figureread your own land →
More in Arkansas
Wider growing context
What grows across ArkansasLockesburg sits outside our named growing regions, so Arkansas as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides