Queen Anne's County, in Maryland, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Queen Anne's County lies within Delmarva Peninsula and Tidewater & Chesapeake — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Queen Anne's County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Queen Anne's 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 Queen Anne's County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Queen Anne's County — the short answer
Queen Anne's County, Maryland: USDA zone 7b, about 247 days between hard freezes, across 238K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~247
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 238K 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 Queen Anne's County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Queen Anne's County's 247-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Queen Anne's County
Across a year, Queen Anne's County accumulates about 3,940 growing degree days above 50°F, about 76 more than the middle Maryland county — ahead of 17 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 Queen Anne's County
Across Queen Anne's County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Ingleside, Whitemarsh, and Unicorn are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.9–6.2, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
52%
Hydric soils
34%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Queen Anne's County
The USDA soil survey maps 43% of Queen Anne's County as well drained — but another 49% drains differently: 25% poorly drained, 18% moderately well drained.
Ingleside is the most extensive named soil at 20% of mapped acres, then Whitemarsh (8%) and Unicorn (8%).
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 Queen Anne's County
Each reading below is measured for Queen Anne's 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 Queen Anne's County are well drained, in hydrologic group A — 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 Queen Anne's County runs about pH 5.9–6.2, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 34% of Queen Anne's County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredQueen Anne's County runs about 247 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
The kind of country Queen Anne's County is in
Queen Anne's County sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Queen Anne's County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Queen Anne's County's own USDA zone 7b and its own 247-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 Queen Anne's County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 21 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 23 — 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 Queen Anne's County
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Queen Anne's County, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle2 documented records
- monarch butterfly87 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Queen Anne's County
USGS estimates 221,898 lb of Glyphosate on Queen Anne's County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (73,546 lb) and Atrazine (70,853 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 Queen Anne's County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Queen Anne's County — 553 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
There's a meaningful federal record across Queen Anne's 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 Queen Anne's County
Closest first, across Queen Anne's County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Mill Stream ShopUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Centreville BescheUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- PMG 6128Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- B & M GlassUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- South Pumping Station-Town of CentrevilleUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- D & R Supply Company - CentrevilleUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- BAY HEMATOLOGY ONCOLOGYBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- DELMARVA POWER - CENTREVILLE DISTRICT OFFICEBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- Centreville District Office - Fleet Fueling FacilityUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- Jack Ashley PropertyUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- G & G Distributors, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- Goodwill Fire CompanyUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Queen Anne's 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 Queen Anne's County.
Total Sites
553
across Queen Anne's County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Queen Anne's County
Severity Distribution
across Queen Anne's County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Queen Anne's County, two things run higher than the national average across Queen Anne's County — CAFO (47 sites) and Nitrate (200 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Queen Anne's 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 Queen Anne's County average
Your land is one point inside Queen Anne's County
Everything above resolves to Queen Anne's County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 238K 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 Queen Anne's County Average
Queen Anne's County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Queen Anne's County
- ●One soil character for all of Queen Anne's County
- ●Frost dates read at Queen Anne's County's scale: Mar 21 to Nov 23
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Queen Anne's County's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Queen Anne's County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Queen Anne's County, Maryland — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Queen Anne's County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Queen Anne's County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Queen Anne's County average
How we know this about Queen Anne's 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 Queen Anne's County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Queen Anne's County
When does frost risk typically end in Queen Anne's County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Queen Anne's County typically lands around Mar 21, 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 11.
How long is the growing season in Queen Anne's County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Queen Anne's County sees about 247 frost-free days — roughly Mar 21 through Nov 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 11 to Nov 9, about 212 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Queen Anne's County?
The federal record around Queen Anne's County is a meaningful one — 553 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (232), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.9 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 Queen Anne's County's scale — its 7b band and its 247-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Queen Anne's 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 Queen Anne's County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Queen Anne's County's own scale — its own ~247-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 553 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Queen Anne's County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Queen Anne's County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~247-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Queen Anne's CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 553 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.9 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Queen Anne's County's boundary and the 237,868 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~247-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Queen Anne's County sitting wholly inside the Middle Atlantic Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Queen Anne's County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Queen Anne's 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 Queen Anne's County — the ~247 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 Queen Anne's County's 237,868 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 553 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 Queen Anne's Countyread your own land →