Solomons, Maryland, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Solomons, 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 Solomons 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 Solomons — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Solomons — the short answer
Solomons, Maryland: USDA zone 8a, about 263 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~263
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 Solomons's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Solomons's 263-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Solomons
Each reading below is measured for Solomons itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSolomons runs about 263 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
MeasuredSolomons 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 Solomons is in
Solomons sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Solomons's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Calvert County is mostly Southeastern Plains. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Solomons
Every plant below cleared Solomons's own zone 8a and its 263-day season. Each card opens that plant's Maryland profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Solomons?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 12 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 30 — 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 Solomons
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Solomons, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Solomons
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Solomons. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- NAVAL AIR STATION PATUXENT RIVER- SOLOMONS ANNEXBrownfields · 1300 ft
- Solomons FastopUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- Calvert Marine MuseumUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- Spring Cove MarinaUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- SPRING COVE MARINABrownfields · 2100 ft
- O'Benny Marine ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Solomon's Pump Station #1Underground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- USN SURFACE WARFARE CENTER-SOLOMON'S ISLSuperfund · 2600 ft
- CVS PHARMACY #2118Brownfields · 0.5 mi
- CA Fd 1Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- CA Gd 6Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- Solomons Volunteer Rescue Squad & Fire DepartmentUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Solomons'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 Solomons.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Solomons
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Solomons
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Solomons, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Solomons — Nitrate (170 sites) and PFAS (4 sites). 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.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Solomons
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 Solomons average
Your land is one point inside Solomons
Everything above resolves to Solomons as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Solomons Average
Solomons Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Solomons
- ●One soil character for all of Solomons
- ●Frost dates read at Solomons's scale: Mar 12 to Nov 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Solomons's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Solomons
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Solomons, Maryland — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Solomons averages can't show:
We read public map data around Solomons — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Solomons average
How we know this about Solomons
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 Solomons’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 Solomons
When does frost risk typically end in Solomons?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Solomons typically lands around Mar 12, 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 2.
When is the first frost in Solomons?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Solomons typically arrives around Nov 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 16, so the watching starts about Oct 31 — about 263 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Solomons?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Solomons sees about 263 frost-free days — roughly Mar 12 through Nov 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 2 to Nov 16, about 228 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Solomons?
The federal record around Solomons is a meaningful one — 461 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (188), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.2 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Solomons?
From about Oct 31 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 30 (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 30. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Solomons's scale — its 8a band and its 263-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Solomons'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 Solomons’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Solomons's own scale — its own ~263-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,274 acres it covers and 461 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Solomons's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Solomons's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 12 and Nov 30 and the ~263-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 461 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Solomons, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Solomons's boundary and the 1,274 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~263-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Solomons sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Solomonslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Solomons's 1,274 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Calvert County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Calvert 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 Calvert County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Solomons's 1,274 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Solomons you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,274 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 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 Solomons-wide figureread your own land →
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