Dixie, Georgia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
These conditions suit artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Dixie, 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 Dixie 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 Dixie — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Dixie — the short answer
Dixie, Georgia: USDA zone 9a, about 297 days between hard freezes, across 962 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 13
- Brooks County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 7
- Brooks County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~297
- Brooks County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Town area
- 962 acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. No 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid, so the hard-freeze dates are Brooks County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 9a is Dixie's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Dixie's 297-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Dixie
Each reading below is measured for Dixie itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsDixie runs about 297 days between hard freezes (read from Brooks County, the closest normal to Dixie) — 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
MeasuredDixie sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a.
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 Dixie is in
Dixie sits in the Southeastern Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Dixie's own centroid rather than borrowed from Brooks County.
What Grows in Dixie
Every plant below cleared Dixie's own zone 9a and its 297-day season. Each card opens that plant's Georgia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Dixie?
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 Jan 16; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 7 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. And with a calendar this mild, the honest answer is that planting barely stops — winter opens seasons colder regions never see.
What's on the federal record near Dixie
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Dixie. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SIMMON HILL ELEM SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- JOHNSON GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- JOHNSON'S GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- HARTS PAINT & BODY SHOPBrownfields · 2.1 mi
- 16E015Nitrate · 2.7 mi
- BOSTON TRACTOR COUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- BOSTON TRUCK STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- GA DOT #10408/BROOKS CO MAINT HQUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- WEBB GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- 17E032Nitrate · 4.3 mi
- GRINER CHEVROLETUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- GA FC BROOKS CO UNITUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Dixie'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 Dixie.
Total Sites
99
within ~10 miles of Dixie
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Dixie
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Dixie
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Dixie, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Dixie — Underground Storage Tanks (68 sites) and Nitrate (26 sites). 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.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Dixie
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 Dixie average
Your land is one point inside Dixie
Everything above resolves to Dixie as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 962 acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Brooks County’s record because no 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid. 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 town 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 Dixie Average
Dixie Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Dixie
- ●One soil character for all of Dixie
- ●Frost dates read at Dixie's scale: Feb 13 to Dec 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Dixie's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Dixie
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Dixie, Georgia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Dixie averages can't show:
We read public map data around Dixie — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Dixie average
How we know this about Dixie
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Brooks County’s record, because none resolves here; 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 town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-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 Dixie
When does frost risk typically end in Dixie?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Dixie typically lands around Feb 13, 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 6.
When is the first frost in Dixie?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Dixie typically arrives around Dec 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 23, so the watching starts about Nov 7 — about 297 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Dixie?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Dixie sees about 297 frost-free days — roughly Feb 13 through Dec 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 6 to Nov 23, about 262 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Dixie?
The federal record around Dixie shows 99 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (68), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Dixie?
From about Nov 7 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 Dec 7 (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 Dec 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Dixie's scale — its 9a band and its 297-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Dixie'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 Dixie’s own scale
5 of the readings below were taken at Dixie's own scale — the 962 acres it covers and 99 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Dixie's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- 99 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Dixie, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Dixie's boundary and the 962 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~297-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Dixie's own centroid, the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Dixie has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Brooks County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Dixie's 962 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Brooks County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Brooks County
- The growing challenges every Georgia grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Georgia
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Brooks County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Dixie's 962 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Dixie you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 962 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Dixie-wide figureread your own land →
More in Georgia
Wider growing context
What grows across GeorgiaDixie sits outside our named growing regions, so Georgia as a whole is its closest context here.