Fort Meade, Maryland, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
On paper, cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Fort Meade, 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 Fort Meade 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 Fort Meade — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Fort Meade — the short answer
Fort Meade, Maryland: USDA zone 7b, about 225 days between hard freezes, across 5K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~225
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 5K 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 7b is Fort Meade's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Fort Meade's 225-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Fort Meade
Each reading below is measured for Fort Meade itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFort Meade runs about 225 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
MeasuredFort Meade 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 Fort Meade is in
Fort Meade sits in the Southeastern Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Fort Meade's own centroid rather than borrowed from Anne Arundel County.
What Grows in Fort Meade
Every plant below cleared Fort Meade's own zone 7b and its 225-day season. Each card opens that plant's Maryland profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Fort Meade?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 8 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Fort Meade
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Fort Meade, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Fort Meade
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Fort Meade. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FORT MEADE (USSS RANGE 1)Brownfields · 1800 ft
- FORT MEADE (USSS RANGE 1)Toxics Release Inventory · 1800 ft
- FORT GEORGE G. MEADEPFAS · 0.5 mi
- USSS RANGE (FORT MEADE)Toxics Release Inventory · 0.7 mi
- FORT MEADE (USSS RANGE)Brownfields · 0.7 mi
- USDOD DEPT OF ARMY FORT MEADEBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- USDOD DEPT OF ARMY FORT MEADEToxics Release Inventory · 0.9 mi
- MACARTHUR MIDDLE SCHOOLBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- USEPA REGION 3 ANALYTICAL SERVICES & QUALITY ASSURANCE BRANCHBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- USEPA REGION 3 ANALYTICAL SERVICES & QUALITY ASSURANCE BRANCHSuperfund · 1.1 mi
- 2021 INAUGURAL NSSE EVENTSuperfund · 1.1 mi
- 2025 PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATIONSuperfund · 1.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Fort Meade'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 Fort Meade.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Fort Meade
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Fort Meade
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Fort Meade
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 Fort Meade average
Your land is one point inside Fort Meade
Everything above resolves to Fort Meade as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 5K 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 Fort Meade Average
Fort Meade Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Fort Meade
- ●One soil character for all of Fort Meade
- ●Frost dates read at Fort Meade's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Fort Meade's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Fort Meade
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Fort Meade, Maryland — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Fort Meade averages can't show:
We read public map data around Fort Meade — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Fort Meade average
How we know this about Fort Meade
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 Fort Meade’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 Fort Meade
When does frost risk typically end in Fort Meade?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Fort Meade typically lands around Mar 28, 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 18.
When is the first frost in Fort Meade?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Fort Meade typically arrives around Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 25, so the watching starts about Oct 9 — about 225 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Fort Meade?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Fort Meade sees about 225 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Oct 25, about 190 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Fort Meade?
The federal record around Fort Meade runs heavier than most — 2,421 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (1,046), the nearest Brownfields 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Fort Meade?
From about Oct 9 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 Nov 8 (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 Nov 8. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Fort Meade's scale — its 7b band and its 225-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Fort Meade'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 Fort Meade’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Fort Meade's own scale — its own ~225-day season between 28°F freezes, the 5,172 acres it covers and 2,421 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Fort Meade's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Fort Meade's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 8 and the ~225-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,421 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Fort Meade, the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Fort Meade's boundary and the 5,172 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~225-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Fort Meade's own centroid, the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Fort Meadelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Fort Meade's 5,172 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Anne Arundel County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Anne Arundel 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 Anne Arundel County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Fort Meade's 5,172 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Fort Meade you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 5,172 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 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 Fort Meade-wide figureread your own land →
More in Maryland
Wider growing context
What grows across MarylandFort Meade sits outside our named growing regions, so Maryland as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides