Heard County, in Georgia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Expect cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Heard County lies within the Piedmont — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Heard County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Heard 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 Heard County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Heard County — the short answer
Heard County, Georgia: USDA zone 8a, about 245 days between hard freezes, across 189K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~245
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 189K 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 Heard County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Heard County's 245-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Heard County
Across a year, Heard County accumulates about 4,806 growing degree days above 50°F, about 609 fewer than the middle Georgia county — ahead of 43 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 1,472 hours below 45°F, 336 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 Heard County
Across Heard County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Madison, Cecil, and Pacolet are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.5, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
9%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Heard County
The USDA soil survey maps 89% of Heard County as well drained — but another 8% drains differently: 8% somewhat excessively drained.
Madison is the most extensive named soil at 31% of mapped acres, then Cecil (19%) and Pacolet (18%).
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 Heard County
Each reading below is measured for Heard 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 Heard 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 Heard County runs about pH 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
MeasuredHeard County runs about 245 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
MeasuredHeard 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 Heard County is in
Heard County sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Heard County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Heard County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 245-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 Heard 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 Feb 18; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 18 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 18 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
What gets applied to farmland in Heard County
USGS estimates 3,456 lb of 2,4-d on Heard County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (1,390 lb) and Glyphosate (680 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 Heard County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Heard County — 55 documented sites across 4 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 5 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Heard County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Heard County
Closest first, across Heard County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION #10Underground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- JAC PRODUCTS FRANKLIN ALUMINUM COToxics Release Inventory · 1.7 mi
- FRANKLIN ALUMINUM DBA/JAC PRODUCTSBrownfields · 1.7 mi
- PPG COATINGS SERVICES (FRANKLIN PLANT)Toxics Release Inventory · 1.8 mi
- JORDANS KWICK STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- FRANKLIN CONVENIENCE STORE #54Underground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- FLASH FOODS #236Underground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- GREENWAY #680 FRANKLIN SQUARE AMUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- JONES SHEET METALUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- RIVERSIDE BPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- PLASTI-PAINT INC.Brownfields · 2.4 mi
- 05AA02Nitrate · 2.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Heard 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 Heard County.
Total Sites
55
across Heard County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
5 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Heard County
Severity Distribution
across Heard County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Heard County, two things run higher than the national average across Heard County — Toxics Release Inventory (5 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (34 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Heard 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 Heard County average
Your land is one point inside Heard County
Everything above resolves to Heard County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 189K 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 Heard County Average
Heard County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Heard County
- ●One soil character for all of Heard County
- ●Frost dates read at Heard County's scale: Mar 18 to Nov 18
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Heard County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Heard County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Heard County, Georgia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Heard County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Heard County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Heard County average
How we know this about Heard 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 Heard County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Heard County
When does frost risk typically end in Heard County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Heard County typically lands around Mar 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 Apr 8.
How long is the growing season in Heard County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Heard County sees about 245 frost-free days — roughly Mar 18 through Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 8 to Nov 4, about 210 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Heard County?
The federal record around Heard County shows 55 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (34), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.6 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.
Everything above is measured at Heard County's scale — its 8a band and its 245-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Heard 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 Heard County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Heard County's own scale — its own ~245-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 55 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Heard County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Heard County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~245-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Heard CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 55 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.6 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Heard County's boundary and the 189,423 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~245-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Heard County sitting wholly inside the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Heard 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 Heard County — the ~245 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 Heard County's 189,423 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 55 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 Heard Countyread your own land →