Fishing Creek, Maryland, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
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.
Even in Fishing Creek, 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 Fishing Creek 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 Fishing Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Fishing Creek — the short answer
Fishing Creek, Maryland: USDA zone 8a, about 271 days between hard freezes, across 676 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~271
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 676 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 8a is Fishing Creek's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Fishing Creek's 271-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Fishing Creek
Each reading below is measured for Fishing Creek itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFishing Creek runs about 271 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
MeasuredFishing Creek 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 Fishing Creek is in
Fishing Creek sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Fishing Creek's own centroid rather than borrowed from Dorchester County.
What Grows in Fishing Creek
Every plant below cleared Fishing Creek's own zone 8a and its 271-day season. Each card opens that plant's Maryland profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Fishing Creek?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 7 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 3 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. In a climate this gentle, “too late” hardly applies — the question becomes which crops prefer the cooler months ahead.
Documented around Fishing Creek
Spotted lanternfly documented 14 miles from Fishing Creek, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Fishing Creek
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Fishing Creek. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Robert PhillipsUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- King's Inc. T/A King's Island PrideUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- DO Fc 8Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- W. T. Ruark & Company, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- Waterman's CafeUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- Russell Hall Seafood, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- Philip AmosUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- A. E. Phillips & Sons, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- Terrapin Fish CompanyUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- Charles H. Parks, & Co., Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- Gootee's Marine Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- DO Ec 3Nitrate · 3.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Fishing Creek'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 Fishing Creek.
Total Sites
63
within ~10 miles of Fishing Creek
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 concentrated animal feeding operation
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Fishing Creek
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Fishing Creek
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Fishing Creek, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 36 sites within ~10 miles of Fishing Creek. 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 Fishing Creek
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 Fishing Creek average
Your land is one point inside Fishing Creek
Everything above resolves to Fishing Creek as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 676 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 town 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 Fishing Creek Average
Fishing Creek Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Fishing Creek
- ●One soil character for all of Fishing Creek
- ●Frost dates read at Fishing Creek's scale: Mar 7 to Dec 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Fishing Creek's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Fishing Creek
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Fishing Creek, Maryland — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Fishing Creek averages can't show:
We read public map data around Fishing Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Fishing Creek average
How we know this about Fishing Creek
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Fishing Creek’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 town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-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 Fishing Creek
When does frost risk typically end in Fishing Creek?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Fishing Creek typically lands around Mar 7, 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 Mar 28.
When is the first frost in Fishing Creek?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Fishing Creek typically arrives around Dec 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 19, so the watching starts about Nov 3 — about 271 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Fishing Creek?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Fishing Creek sees about 271 frost-free days — roughly Mar 7 through Dec 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 28 to Nov 19, about 236 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Fishing Creek?
The federal record around Fishing Creek shows 63 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (36), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Fishing Creek?
From about Nov 3 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 Dec 3 (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 Dec 3. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Fishing Creek's scale — its 8a band and its 271-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Fishing Creek'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 Fishing Creek’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Fishing Creek's own scale — its own ~271-day season between 28°F freezes, the 676 acres it covers and 63 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Fishing Creek's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Fishing Creek's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 7 and Dec 3 and the ~271-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 63 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Fishing Creek, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Fishing Creek's boundary and the 676 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~271-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Fishing Creek's own centroid, the Middle Atlantic Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Fishing Creeklydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Fishing Creek's 676 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Dorchester County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Dorchester County
- The growing challenges every Maryland grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Maryland
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Dorchester County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Fishing Creek's 676 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Fishing Creek you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 676 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Fishing Creek-wide figureread your own land →