Brooksville, Kentucky, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Brooksville, 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 Brooksville 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 Brooksville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Brooksville — the short answer
Brooksville, Kentucky: USDA zone 6b, about 223 days between hard freezes, across 302 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~223
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 302 acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 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 6b is Brooksville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Brooksville's 223-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Brooksville
Each reading below is measured for Brooksville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBrooksville runs about 223 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
MeasuredBrooksville sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Brooksville is in
Brooksville sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Brooksville's own centroid rather than borrowed from Bracken County.
What Grows in Brooksville
Every plant below cleared Brooksville's own zone 6b and its 223-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kentucky profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Brooksville?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 10 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Brooksville
Survey cells within 31 miles of Brooksville checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 36 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Brooksville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Brooksville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Gasoline Alley #8Underground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- Brooksville 1st StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- Lees Bestway IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- Hills Corner MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- Stewarts Bracken Co Farm SupplyUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- Bobby L Harper Distribution Co IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- Todds Farm SupplyUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- Falmouth Bulk Plant 241Underground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- Hays GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- Ashland BPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- Bracken Co Bd Of Ed Bus GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- Chevron Mini MartUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Brooksville'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 Brooksville.
Total Sites
84
within ~10 miles of Brooksville
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Brooksville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Brooksville
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Brooksville, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 68 sites within ~10 miles of Brooksville. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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 Brooksville
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 Brooksville average
Your land is one point inside Brooksville
Everything above resolves to Brooksville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 302 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 city 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 Brooksville Average
Brooksville Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Brooksville
- ●One soil character for all of Brooksville
- ●Frost dates read at Brooksville's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Brooksville's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Brooksville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Brooksville, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Brooksville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Brooksville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Brooksville average
How we know this about Brooksville
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Brooksville’s own record; 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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Brooksville
When does frost risk typically end in Brooksville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Brooksville typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
When is the first frost in Brooksville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Brooksville typically arrives around Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 27, so the watching starts about Oct 11 — about 223 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Brooksville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Brooksville sees about 223 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 27, about 188 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Brooksville?
The federal record around Brooksville shows 84 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 Brooksville?
From about Oct 11 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 Nov 10 (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 Nov 10. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Brooksville's scale — its 6b band and its 223-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Brooksville'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 Brooksville’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Brooksville's own scale — its own ~223-day season between 28°F freezes, the 302 acres it covers and 84 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Brooksville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Brooksville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 10 and the ~223-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 84 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Brooksville, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Brooksville's boundary and the 302 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~223-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Brooksville's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Brooksville checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Brooksville's 302 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Bracken County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Bracken County
- The growing challenges every Kentucky grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Kentucky
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Bracken County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Brooksville's 302 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Brooksville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 302 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 Brooksville-wide figureread your own land →
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