St. Michaels, Maryland, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in St. Michaels, 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. Michaels 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. Michaels — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
St. Michaels — the short answer
St. Michaels, Maryland: USDA zone 8a, about 272 days between hard freezes, across 746 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 8
- 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
- ~272
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 746 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. Michaels's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against St. Michaels's 272-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in St. Michaels
Each reading below is measured for St. Michaels itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSt. Michaels runs about 272 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. Michaels 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. Michaels is in
St. Michaels sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at St. Michaels's own centroid rather than borrowed from Talbot County.
What Grows in St. Michaels
Every plant below cleared St. Michaels's own zone 8a and its 272-day season. Each card opens that plant's Maryland profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in St. Michaels?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 8 (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. Michaels
Spotted lanternfly documented 11 miles from St. Michaels, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near St. Michaels
Closest first, within ~10 miles of St. Michaels. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CHESAPEAKE BAY MARITIME MUSEUMBrownfields · 750 ft
- Gramps, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- St. Michaels Town OfficeUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- St. Michaels Marina, LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- Public Works Maintenance ShopUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- James R. Barrow, Jr.Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- DELMARVA POWER - GRACE STREET SUBSTATIONBrownfields · 1900 ft
- St. Michaels Milling Co.Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- TA Cc 29Nitrate · 2600 ft
- ST MICHAELS HIGH SCHLBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- M & M Gas & GoUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- Dawkins Market, Inc./Doc's Quick ShopUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from St. Michaels'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. Michaels.
Total Sites
346
within ~10 miles of St. Michaels
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of St. Michaels
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of St. Michaels
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •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.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
Check your specific parcel in St. Michaels
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. Michaels average
Your land is one point inside St. Michaels
Everything above resolves to St. Michaels as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 746 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. Michaels Average
St. Michaels Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across St. Michaels
- ●One soil character for all of St. Michaels
- ●Frost dates read at St. Michaels's scale: Mar 8 to Dec 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not St. Michaels's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in St. Michaels
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in St. Michaels, Maryland — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that St. Michaels averages can't show:
We read public map data around St. Michaels — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the St. Michaels average
How we know this about St. Michaels
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. Michaels’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. Michaels
When does frost risk typically end in St. Michaels?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in St. Michaels typically lands around Mar 8, 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 29.
When is the first frost in St. Michaels?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in St. Michaels 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 272 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in St. Michaels?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, St. Michaels sees about 272 frost-free days — roughly Mar 8 through Dec 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 29 to Nov 21, about 237 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in St. Michaels?
The federal record around St. Michaels is a meaningful one — 346 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (203), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.1 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. Michaels?
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. Michaels's scale — its 8a band and its 272-day season. Your yard writes its own version of St. Michaels'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. Michaels’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at St. Michaels's own scale — its own ~272-day season between 28°F freezes, the 746 acres it covers and 346 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- St. Michaels's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- St. Michaels's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 8 and Dec 5 and the ~272-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 346 documented contamination sites on the federal record near St. Michaels, the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- St. Michaels's boundary and the 746 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~272-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at St. Michaels's own centroid, the Middle Atlantic Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of St. Michaelslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so St. Michaels's 746 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Talbot County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Talbot 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 Talbot County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among St. Michaels's 746 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of St. Michaels you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 746 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 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. Michaels-wide figureread your own land →