Perkins, Georgia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
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.
Even in Perkins, 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 Perkins 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 Perkins — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Perkins — the short answer
Perkins, Georgia: USDA zone 8b, about 287 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 20
- Jenkins County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 4
- Jenkins County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~287
- Jenkins County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 Jenkins County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 8b is Perkins's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Perkins's 287-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Perkins
Each reading below is measured for Perkins itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsPerkins runs about 287 days between hard freezes (read from Jenkins County, the closest normal to Perkins) — 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
MeasuredPerkins 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 Perkins is in
Perkins sits in the Southeastern Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Perkins's own centroid rather than borrowed from Jenkins County.
What Grows in Perkins
Every plant below cleared Perkins's own zone 8b and its 287-day season. Each card opens that plant's Georgia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Perkins?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 20 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 4 — 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's on the federal record near Perkins
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Perkins. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 30X012Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- FAA/QMG RCAG (MILLEN)Underground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- JOCKEY INTERNATIONAL INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- FORMER JUDYS CAFEUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- PLANTERS EMC WAREHOUSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.8 mi
- GOLD KIST COMPLEXUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.1 mi
- DEKLE GULFUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.4 mi
- FORMER IVEYS USED CARS PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.7 mi
- DIAMOND OIL #101Underground Storage Tanks · 6.9 mi
- MILLENPFAS · 7.2 mi
- KAIGLERS CONVENIENCE (FORMERLY)Underground Storage Tanks · 7.3 mi
- DILANE WILDLIFE MANGEMENT AREAUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Perkins'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 Perkins.
Total Sites
60
within ~10 miles of Perkins
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Perkins
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Perkins
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Perkins, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 48 sites within ~10 miles of Perkins. 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 Perkins
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 Perkins average
Your land is one point inside Perkins
Everything above resolves to Perkins as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 1K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Jenkins 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 Perkins Average
Perkins Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Perkins
- ●One soil character for all of Perkins
- ●Frost dates read at Perkins's scale: Feb 20 to Dec 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Perkins's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Perkins
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Perkins, Georgia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Perkins averages can't show:
We read public map data around Perkins — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Perkins average
How we know this about Perkins
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 Jenkins 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 Perkins
When does frost risk typically end in Perkins?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Perkins typically lands around Feb 20, 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 13.
When is the first frost in Perkins?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Perkins typically arrives around Dec 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 20, so the watching starts about Nov 4 — about 287 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Perkins?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Perkins sees about 287 frost-free days — roughly Feb 20 through Dec 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 13 to Nov 20, about 252 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Perkins?
The federal record around Perkins shows 60 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (48), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.6 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Perkins?
From about Nov 4 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 4 (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 4. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Perkins's scale — its 8b band and its 287-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Perkins'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 Perkins’s own scale
5 of the readings below were taken at Perkins's own scale — the 1,324 acres it covers and 60 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Perkins's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- 60 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Perkins, the closest Nitrate record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Perkins's boundary and the 1,324 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~287-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Perkins's own centroid, the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Perkins has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Jenkins County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Perkins's 1,324 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Jenkins County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Jenkins 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 Jenkins County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Perkins's 1,324 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Perkins you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,324 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.6 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 Perkins-wide figureread your own land →
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