Twiggs County, in Georgia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
These conditions suit cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Twiggs County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Twiggs 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 Twiggs County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Twiggs County — the short answer
Twiggs County, Georgia: USDA zone 8b, about 282 days between hard freezes, across 230K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~282
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 230K 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 Twiggs County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Twiggs County's 282-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Twiggs County
Across a year, Twiggs County accumulates about 5,475 growing degree days above 50°F, about 60 more than the middle Georgia county — ahead of 82 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 1,129 hours below 45°F, 7 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 Twiggs County
Across Twiggs County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Orangeburg, Eustis, and Chewacla are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a sandy loam 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
24%
Hydric soils
14%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Twiggs County
The USDA soil survey maps 68% of Twiggs County as well drained — but another 29% drains differently: 13% poorly drained, 13% somewhat poorly drained.
Orangeburg is the most extensive named soil at 31% of mapped acres, then Eustis (7%) and Chewacla (7%).
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 Twiggs County
Each reading below is measured for Twiggs 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 Twiggs 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 Twiggs 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
Season length
MeasuredTwiggs County runs about 282 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
MeasuredTwiggs 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 Twiggs County is in
Twiggs 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 Twiggs County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Twiggs County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 282-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 Twiggs County?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 27; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 24 (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 Twiggs County
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Twiggs County
USGS estimates 10,685 lb of Glyphosate on Twiggs County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acetochlor (8,747 lb) and Fluometuron (8,128 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 Twiggs County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Twiggs County — 91 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Twiggs 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 Twiggs County
Closest first, across Twiggs County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 18V014Nitrate · 2.9 mi
- 18V007Nitrate · 2.9 mi
- 18V011Nitrate · 3.5 mi
- CORNER SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- BOBS TIRE SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- EIGHTY MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- PATTERSONS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- RICHLAND SOLAR CENTER, LLCBrownfields · 3.8 mi
- DRY BRANCH KAOLIN COMPANY - JEFFUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- MARATHON MART #16Underground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- NORD KAOLIN COToxics Release Inventory · 4.3 mi
- FORMER NIKE MISSLE BASEUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Twiggs 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 Twiggs County.
Total Sites
91
across Twiggs County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Twiggs County
Severity Distribution
across Twiggs County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Twiggs County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 44 sites across Twiggs 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 Twiggs 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 Twiggs County average
Your land is one point inside Twiggs County
Everything above resolves to Twiggs County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 230K 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 Twiggs County Average
Twiggs County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Twiggs County
- ●One soil character for all of Twiggs County
- ●Frost dates read at Twiggs County's scale: Feb 24 to Dec 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Twiggs County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Twiggs County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Twiggs County, Georgia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Twiggs County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Twiggs County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Twiggs County average
How we know this about Twiggs 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 Twiggs County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Twiggs County
When does frost risk typically end in Twiggs County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Twiggs County typically lands around Feb 24, 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 17.
How long is the growing season in Twiggs County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Twiggs County sees about 282 frost-free days — roughly Feb 24 through Dec 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 17 to Nov 19, about 247 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Twiggs County?
The federal record around Twiggs County shows 91 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (44), the nearest Nitrate record about 2.9 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 Twiggs County's scale — its 8b band and its 282-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Twiggs 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 Twiggs County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Twiggs County's own scale — its own ~282-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 91 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Twiggs County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Twiggs County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~282-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Twiggs CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 91 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 2.9 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Twiggs County's boundary and the 229,926 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~282-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Twiggs County sitting wholly inside the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Twiggs County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Twiggs 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 Twiggs County — the ~282 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 Twiggs County's 229,926 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 91 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 Twiggs Countyread your own land →