St. George Island, Maryland, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Growers here do well with cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in St. George Island, 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 St. George Island 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 St. George Island — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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St. George Island — the short answer
St. George Island, Maryland: USDA zone 8a, about 269 days between hard freezes, across 504 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~269
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 504 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 St. George Island's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against St. George Island's 269-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in St. George Island
Each reading below is measured for St. George Island itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSt. George Island runs about 269 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
MeasuredSt. George Island 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 St. George Island is in
St. George Island sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at St. George Island's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: St. Mary's County is mostly Southeastern Plains. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in St. George Island
Every plant below cleared St. George Island's own zone 8a and its 269-day season. Each card opens that plant's Maryland profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in St. George Island?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 11 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 5 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the calendar nearly circles: cool-season crops take the winter shift, and the next window is always close.
Documented around St. George Island
Spotted lanternfly documented 18 miles from St. George Island, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near St. George Island
Closest first, within ~10 miles of St. George Island. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SM Ff 8Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- George S. BarnesUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- SHA BRIDGE #1802600Brownfields · 1.2 mi
- Island Fishing CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- PINEY POINT TERMINALBrownfields · 1.8 mi
- Saint George Pier (Old Swann's Resort)Underground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- SM Fe 41Nitrate · 2.5 mi
- SM Fe 1Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- Piney Point WWPSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- Lumpkins SeafoodUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- Piney Point Aquaculture CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- SM Fe 21Nitrate · 2.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from St. George Island'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 St. George Island.
Total Sites
224
within ~10 miles of St. George Island
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of St. George Island
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of St. George Island
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around St. George Island, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 67 sites within ~10 miles of St. George Island. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 St. George Island
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 St. George Island average
Your land is one point inside St. George Island
Everything above resolves to St. George Island as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 504 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 St. George Island Average
St. George Island Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across St. George Island
- ●One soil character for all of St. George Island
- ●Frost dates read at St. George Island's scale: Mar 11 to Dec 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not St. George Island's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in St. George Island
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in St. George Island, Maryland — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that St. George Island averages can't show:
We read public map data around St. George Island — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the St. George Island average
How we know this about St. George Island
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 St. George Island’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 St. George Island
When does frost risk typically end in St. George Island?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in St. George Island typically lands around Mar 11, 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 1.
When is the first frost in St. George Island?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in St. George Island typically arrives around Dec 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 21, so the watching starts about Nov 5 — about 269 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in St. George Island?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, St. George Island sees about 269 frost-free days — roughly Mar 11 through Dec 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 1 to Nov 21, about 234 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in St. George Island?
The federal record around St. George Island is a meaningful one — 224 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (129), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.6 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 St. George Island?
From about Nov 5 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 5 (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 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at St. George Island's scale — its 8a band and its 269-day season. Your yard writes its own version of St. George Island'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 St. George Island’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at St. George Island's own scale — its own ~269-day season between 28°F freezes, the 504 acres it covers and 224 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- St. George Island's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- St. George Island's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 11 and Dec 5 and the ~269-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 224 documented contamination sites on the federal record near St. George Island, the closest Nitrate record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- St. George Island's boundary and the 504 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~269-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- St. George Island 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 St. George Islandlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so St. George Island's 504 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom St. Mary's County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom St. Mary's 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 St. Mary's County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among St. George Island's 504 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of St. George Island you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 504 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.6 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 St. George Island-wide figureread your own land →
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