Baltimore city, in Maryland, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
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.
Baltimore city lies within the Maryland Piedmont — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Baltimore city holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Baltimore city, 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 Baltimore city — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Baltimore city — the short answer
Baltimore city, Maryland: USDA zone 8a, about 260 days between hard freezes, across 52K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~260
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 52K 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 Baltimore city's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Baltimore city's 260-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Baltimore city
Across a year, Baltimore city accumulates about 3,987 growing degree days above 50°F, about 123 more than the middle Maryland county — ahead of 18 of Maryland’s 24 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.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Baltimore County
Across Baltimore County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Legore, Joppa, and Sunnyside are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a variable surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.6–5.6, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
0%
Hydric soils
4%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Baltimore city
The USDA soil survey maps 40% of Baltimore city as well drained — but another 13% drains differently: 10% moderately well drained, 2% poorly drained.
Legore is the most extensive named soil at 20% of mapped acres, then Joppa (7%) and Sunnyside (6%).
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 Baltimore city
Each reading below is measured for Baltimore city itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Baltimore city are well drained, in hydrologic group D — 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 Baltimore city runs about pH 4.6–5.6, 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
MeasuredBaltimore city runs about 260 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
MeasuredBaltimore city 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 Baltimore city is in
Baltimore city spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Southeastern Plains (57%) and Northern Piedmont (40%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Baltimore city
We scored all 1,086 plants against Baltimore city's own USDA zone 8a and its own 260-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 Maryland profile.
Is it too late to plant in Baltimore city?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 12 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 27 — 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.
Documented around Baltimore city
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Baltimore city, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly98 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Baltimore County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Baltimore County — 2,675 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 22 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Baltimore County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Baltimore city
Closest first, across Baltimore County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ATTISUnderground Storage Tanks · 400 ft
- Baltimore City Central Booking and Intake CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- BALTIMORE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT (EAGER STREET ACADEMY)Brownfields · 450 ft
- Chesapeake Detention FacilityUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- Maryland PenitentiaryUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- BALTIMORE CITY DETENTION CTRBrownfields · 800 ft
- Vacant Baltimore Sun Bldg.Underground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- MARYLAND STATE HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION - HEADQUARTER OFFICEBrownfields · 950 ft
- Maryland Reception & Diagnostic CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- HUGHES FURNITURE SERVICE INC.Brownfields · 1100 ft
- R.E. Michel Company, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- GREENMOUNT PROPERTYBrownfields · 1300 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Baltimore city'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 Baltimore city.
Sources Checked
across Baltimore County
Severity Distribution
across Baltimore County
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Baltimore city
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 Baltimore city average
Your land is one point inside Baltimore city
Everything above resolves to Baltimore city as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 52K 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 Baltimore city Average
Baltimore city Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Baltimore city
- ●One soil character for all of Baltimore city
- ●Frost dates read at Baltimore city's scale: Mar 12 to Nov 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Baltimore city's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Baltimore city
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Baltimore city, Maryland — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Baltimore city averages can't show:
We read public map data around Baltimore city — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Baltimore city average
How we know this about Baltimore city
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 Baltimore city carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Baltimore city
When does frost risk typically end in Baltimore city?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Baltimore city typically lands around Mar 12, 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 2.
How long is the growing season in Baltimore city?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Baltimore city sees about 260 frost-free days — roughly Mar 12 through Nov 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 2 to Nov 13, about 225 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Baltimore city?
The federal record around Baltimore city is a meaningful one — 2,675 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,354), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
Everything above is measured at Baltimore city's scale — its 8a band and its 260-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Baltimore city'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 Maryland's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Baltimore city’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Baltimore city's own scale — its own ~260-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 2,675 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Baltimore city's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Baltimore city's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~260-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Baltimore cityUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 2,675 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile outFederal environmental registers
- Baltimore city's boundary and the 51,805 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~260-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Baltimore city spans, Southeastern Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Baltimore city for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Maryland grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Maryland
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Baltimore city — the ~260 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 Baltimore city's 51,805 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 2,675 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 Baltimore cityread your own land →