Cecil County, in Maryland, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Expect cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Cecil County lies within Delmarva Peninsula — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Cecil County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Cecil 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 Cecil County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Cecil County — the short answer
Cecil County, Maryland: USDA zone 7b, about 239 days between hard freezes, across 222K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~239
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 222K 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 7b is Cecil County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cecil County's 239-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Cecil County
Across a year, Cecil County accumulates about 3,637 growing degree days above 50°F, about 227 fewer than the middle Maryland county — ahead of 8 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 Cecil County
Across Cecil County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Glenelg, Matapeake, and Sassafras are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.2–6.0, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
38%
Hydric soils
7%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Cecil County
The USDA soil survey maps 47% of Cecil County as well drained — but another 34% drains differently: 23% moderately well drained, 6% poorly drained.
Glenelg is the most extensive named soil at 15% of mapped acres, then Matapeake (9%) and Sassafras (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 Cecil County
Each reading below is measured for Cecil 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 Cecil 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 Cecil County runs about pH 5.2–6.0, 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
MeasuredCecil County runs about 239 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
MeasuredCecil County sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Cecil County is in
Cecil County spans 3 EPA Level III ecoregions — Northern Piedmont (41%), Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain (33%) and Southeastern Plains (26%). 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 Cecil County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Cecil County's own USDA zone 7b and its own 239-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 Cecil County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 24; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 24 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 18 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Cecil County
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Cecil County, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle1 documented records
- monarch butterfly39 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Cecil County
USGS estimates 92,753 lb of Glyphosate on Cecil County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (29,288 lb) and Atrazine (28,131 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 Cecil County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Cecil County — 657 documented sites across 8 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 16 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Cecil County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Cecil County
Closest first, across Cecil County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- NortheastUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- Northeast PlantUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- DEAN CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION INCBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- Dean ConcreteUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- ELKTON SPARKLERSuperfund · 0.9 mi
- Elkton Sparkler FactoryUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- ELKTON SPARKLER CO INCToxics Release Inventory · 1.0 mi
- McDaniel Yacht BasinUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- KLMK, Inc. T/A The North East StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- CE Cd 90Nitrate · 1.1 mi
- CHEASAPEAKE SERVICEBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- Black Hills Elk Neck St. Forest AreaUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cecil 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 Cecil County.
Severity Distribution
across Cecil County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cecil County, two things run higher than the national average across Cecil County — Superfund (16 sites) and CAFO (6 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check your specific parcel in Cecil 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 Cecil County average
Your land is one point inside Cecil County
Everything above resolves to Cecil County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 222K 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 Cecil County Average
Cecil County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Cecil County
- ●One soil character for all of Cecil County
- ●Frost dates read at Cecil County's scale: Mar 24 to Nov 18
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cecil County's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Cecil County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cecil County, Maryland — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cecil County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cecil County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cecil County average
How we know this about Cecil 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 Cecil County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Cecil County
When does frost risk typically end in Cecil County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cecil County typically lands around Mar 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 Apr 14.
How long is the growing season in Cecil County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cecil County sees about 239 frost-free days — roughly Mar 24 through Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 14 to Nov 4, about 204 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cecil County?
The federal record around Cecil County runs heavier than most — 657 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (329), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
Everything above is measured at Cecil County's scale — its 7b band and its 239-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cecil 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 Maryland's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Cecil County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Cecil County's own scale — its own ~239-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 657 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cecil County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cecil County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~239-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Cecil CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 657 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Cecil County's boundary and the 221,632 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~239-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 3 ecoregions Cecil County spans, Northern Piedmont the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Cecil County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Cecil County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
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 Cecil County — the ~239 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 Cecil County's 221,632 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 657 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 Cecil Countyread your own land →