Garrett County, in Maryland, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Garrett County lies within Appalachia — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Garrett County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Garrett 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 Garrett County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Garrett County — the short answer
Garrett County, Maryland: USDA zone 6a, about 190 days between hard freezes, across 415K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~190
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 415K 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 6a is Garrett County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Garrett County's 190-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Garrett County
Across a year, Garrett County accumulates about 2,004 growing degree days above 50°F, about 1,860 fewer than the middle Maryland county — no other Maryland county banks fewer. 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 Garrett County
Across Garrett County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Gilpin, Dekalb, and Calvin are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a channery loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.6–5.2, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
1%
Hydric soils
9%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Garrett County
The USDA soil survey maps 68% of Garrett County as well drained — but another 30% drains differently: 21% moderately well drained, 7% poorly drained.
Gilpin is the most extensive named soil at 18% of mapped acres, then Dekalb (14%) and Calvin (9%).
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 Garrett County
Each reading below is measured for Garrett 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 Garrett County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — 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 Garrett County runs about pH 4.6–5.2, 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
MeasuredGarrett County runs about 190 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredGarrett County sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Garrett County is in
Garrett County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Central Appalachians (65%) and Ridge and Valley (35%). 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 Garrett County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Garrett County's own USDA zone 6a and its own 190-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 Garrett County?
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 Mar 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 22 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 29 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Late in the year the fall bench takes over — quick greens, radishes, and garlic that repays you next summer.
Documented around Garrett County
Spotted lanternfly documented 1 miles from Garrett County, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle3 documented records
- monarch butterfly15 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Garrett County
USGS estimates 11,853 lb of Glyphosate on Garrett County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (7,750 lb) and Metolachlor-s (7,260 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 Garrett County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Garrett County — 380 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 5 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
There's a meaningful federal record across Garrett 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 Garrett County
Closest first, across Garrett County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- GA Cc 78Nitrate · 2.3 mi
- GARRETT COMMUNITY COBrownfields · 2.4 mi
- Western MD 4-H CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- GA Cc 56Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- First United Bank & TrustUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- Deep Creek Lake State ParkUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- Bill's Marine ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- Patterson Boat Co., Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- St. Moritz Marine Service, Inc. DBA Bill's Marine ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- GA Cc 2Nitrate · 3.5 mi
- Bill's Marine Service 219 Rental DockUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- GA Cc 72Nitrate · 3.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Garrett 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 Garrett County.
Total Sites
380
across Garrett County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
5 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Garrett County
Severity Distribution
across Garrett County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Garrett County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 110 sites across Garrett County. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Garrett 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 Garrett County average
Your land is one point inside Garrett County
Everything above resolves to Garrett County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 415K 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 Garrett County Average
Garrett County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Garrett County
- ●One soil character for all of Garrett County
- ●Frost dates read at Garrett County's scale: Apr 22 to Oct 29
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Garrett County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Garrett County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Garrett County, Maryland — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Garrett County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Garrett County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Garrett County average
How we know this about Garrett 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 Garrett County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Garrett County
When does frost risk typically end in Garrett County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Garrett County typically lands around Apr 22, 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 May 13.
How long is the growing season in Garrett County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Garrett County sees about 190 frost-free days — roughly Apr 22 through Oct 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 13 to Oct 15, about 155 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Garrett County?
The federal record around Garrett County is a meaningful one — 380 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (194), the nearest Nitrate record about 2.3 miles 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 Garrett County's scale — its 6a band and its 190-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Garrett 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 Garrett County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Garrett County's own scale — its own ~190-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 380 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Garrett County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Garrett County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~190-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Garrett CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 380 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 2.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Garrett County's boundary and the 415,409 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~190-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Garrett County spans, Central Appalachians the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Garrett County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Garrett 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 Garrett County — the ~190 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 Garrett County's 415,409 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 380 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 Garrett Countyread your own land →