Crawford County, in Georgia, 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.
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.
Crawford County lies within the Middle Georgia Peach Belt — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Crawford County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Crawford 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 Crawford County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Crawford County — the short answer
Crawford County, Georgia: USDA zone 8b, about 278 days between hard freezes, across 208K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~278
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 208K 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 Crawford County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Crawford County's 278-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Crawford County
Across a year, Crawford County accumulates about 5,384 growing degree days above 50°F, about 31 fewer than the middle Georgia county — ahead of 76 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 1,138 hours below 45°F, 2 more 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 Crawford County
Across Crawford County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Cowarts, Troup, and Wynott are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a loamy sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.2–5.5, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
22%
Hydric soils
3%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Crawford County
The USDA soil survey maps 69% of Crawford County as well drained — but another 30% drains differently: 10% somewhat excessively drained, 7% moderately well drained.
Cowarts is the most extensive named soil at 23% of mapped acres, then Troup (11%) and Wynott (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 Crawford County
Each reading below is measured for Crawford 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 Crawford 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 Crawford County runs about pH 5.2–5.5, 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
Season length
MeasuredCrawford County runs about 278 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
MeasuredCrawford 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 Crawford County is in
Crawford County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Southeastern Plains (58%) and Piedmont (42%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Crawford County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Crawford County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 278-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 Crawford 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 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 Dec 1 — 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.
What gets applied to farmland in Crawford County
USGS estimates 4,257 lb of Malathion on Crawford County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (2,298 lb) and Chlorpyrifos (1,105 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 Crawford County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Crawford County — 37 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 Crawford 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 Crawford County
Closest first, across Crawford County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CRAWFORD COUNTY MAINTENANCE GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- KNOXVILLE STORE INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- CITY OF ROBERTAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- ROBERTA VALEROUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- HESTER'S UNION 76Underground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- HADDOCK BPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- HORTMANS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- ROBERTA EXCHANGE - PSTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 103Underground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- BOBS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- FORMER ONEALS SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- ROBERTA GULFUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Crawford 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 Crawford County.
Sources Checked
across Crawford County
Severity Distribution
across Crawford County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Crawford County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 29 sites across Crawford County. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Crawford 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 Crawford County average
Your land is one point inside Crawford County
Everything above resolves to Crawford County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 208K 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 Crawford County Average
Crawford County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Crawford County
- ●One soil character for all of Crawford County
- ●Frost dates read at Crawford County's scale: Feb 26 to Dec 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Crawford County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Crawford County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Crawford County, Georgia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Crawford County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Crawford County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Crawford County average
How we know this about Crawford 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 Crawford County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Crawford County
When does frost risk typically end in Crawford County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Crawford 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 Crawford County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Crawford County sees about 278 frost-free days — roughly Feb 26 through Dec 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 19 to Nov 17, about 243 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Crawford County?
The federal record around Crawford County is light — 37 documented sites across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (29), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.3 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 Crawford County's scale — its 8b band and its 278-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Crawford 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 Crawford County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Crawford County's own scale — its own ~278-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 37 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Crawford County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Crawford County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~278-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Crawford CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 37 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Crawford County's boundary and the 207,945 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~278-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Crawford County spans, Southeastern Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Crawford 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 Crawford County — the ~278 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 Crawford County's 207,945 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 37 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 Crawford Countyread your own land →