Baker County, in Georgia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
The conditions favor cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Baker County lies within the Southwest Georgia / Dougherty Plain — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Baker County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Baker 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 Baker County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Baker County — the short answer
Baker County, Georgia: USDA zone 8b, about 288 days between hard freezes, across 219K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~288
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 219K 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 Baker County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Baker County's 288-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Baker County
Across a year, Baker County accumulates about 6,048 growing degree days above 50°F, about 633 more than the middle Georgia county — ahead of 124 of Georgia’s 159 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 757 hours below 45°F, 379 fewer than the Georgia middle of 1,136. 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 Baker County
Across Baker County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Orangeburg, Wagram, and Grady are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a loamy sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.3–5.5, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
36%
Hydric soils
16%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Baker County
The USDA soil survey maps 59% of Baker County as well drained — but another 40% drains differently: 14% poorly drained, 8% somewhat poorly drained.
Orangeburg is the most extensive named soil at 15% of mapped acres, then Wagram (12%) and Grady (10%).
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 Baker County
Each reading below is measured for Baker 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 Baker County are well drained, in hydrologic group B — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Baker County runs about pH 5.3–5.5, 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
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 16% of Baker County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredBaker County runs about 288 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
The kind of country Baker County is in
Baker County sits in the Southeastern Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Baker County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Baker County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 288-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 Georgia profile.
Is it too late to plant in Baker 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 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 18 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 3 — 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 Baker County
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Baker County
USGS estimates 45,028 lb of Glyphosate on Baker County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (18,979 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (18,476 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 Baker County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Baker County — 30 documented sites across 3 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 brownfield site. Former commercial or industrial land where legacy contamination may persist.
The federal record across Baker County is light. Growing food here starts from a strong position — a quick pass over the map tells you whether any recorded site sits near your land, and if one does, that's information to plant with, not a reason to stop.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Baker County
Closest first, across Baker County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 10J009Nitrate · 1.2 mi
- 10J008Nitrate · 2.3 mi
- 10J001Nitrate · 2.4 mi
- RANCE HAWKINSUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
- 10K007Nitrate · 4.7 mi
- 09J001Nitrate · 5.1 mi
- MCCONNELLS TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.7 mi
- FORMERS TERRYS COUNTRY MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.7 mi
- 10H002Nitrate · 5.8 mi
- 11J021Nitrate · 5.8 mi
- WILLONOOK FARMSUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.1 mi
- PINELAND PLANTATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Baker 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 Baker County.
Severity Distribution
across Baker County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Baker County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 18 sites across Baker 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 Baker 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 Baker County average
Your land is one point inside Baker County
Everything above resolves to Baker County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 219K 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 Baker County Average
Baker County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Baker County
- ●One soil character for all of Baker County
- ●Frost dates read at Baker County's scale: Feb 18 to Dec 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Baker County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Baker County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Baker County, Georgia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Baker County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Baker County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Baker County average
How we know this about Baker 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 Baker County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Baker County
When does frost risk typically end in Baker County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Baker County typically lands around Feb 18, 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 11.
How long is the growing season in Baker County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Baker County sees about 288 frost-free days — roughly Feb 18 through Dec 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 11 to Nov 19, about 253 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Baker County?
The federal record around Baker County is light — 30 documented sites across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Nitrate entries (18), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.2 miles out — and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. Growing food here starts from a strong position; a soil test before new food beds settles any site-specific question.
Everything above is measured at Baker County's scale — its 8b band and its 288-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Baker 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 Georgia's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Baker County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Baker County's own scale — its own ~288-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 30 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Baker County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Baker County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~288-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Baker CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 30 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 1.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Baker County's boundary and the 218,852 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~288-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Baker County sitting wholly inside the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Baker County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Baker County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Georgia grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Georgia
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Baker County — the ~288 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 Baker County's 218,852 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 30 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 Baker Countyread your own land →