Benzie County, in Michigan, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
On paper, cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Benzie County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Benzie County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Benzie County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Benzie County — the short answer
Benzie County, Michigan: USDA zone 6b, about 194 days between hard freezes, across 205K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~194
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 205K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 6b is Benzie County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Benzie County's 194-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Benzie County
Across a year, Benzie County accumulates about 1,941 growing degree days above 50°F, about 159 fewer than the middle Michigan county — ahead of 34 of Michigan’s 83 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Benzie County
Across Benzie County, the ground is predominantly Spodosols, where Benzonia, Kaleva, and Benona are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally excessively drained with a sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.5–5.7, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A soils.
Soil order
Spodosols
Drainage
Excessively drained
Prime farmland
0%
Hydric soils
12%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Benzie County
The USDA soil survey maps 29% of Benzie County as excessively drained — but another 62% drains differently: 24% well drained, 18% somewhat excessively drained.
Benzonia is the most extensive named soil at 21% of mapped acres, then Kaleva (20%) and Benona (8%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Benzie County
Each reading below is measured for Benzie County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Benzie County are excessively drained, in hydrologic group A — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Benzie County runs about pH 4.5–5.7, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredBenzie County runs about 194 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredBenzie County sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Benzie County is in
Benzie County sits in the North Central Hardwood Forests — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Benzie County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Benzie County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 194-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Michigan profile.
Is it too late to plant in Benzie County?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 31; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 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. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
Documented around Benzie County
- Japanese beetle4 documented records
- monarch butterfly21 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Benzie County
USGS estimates 1,686 lb of Glyphosate on Benzie County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Carbaryl (854 lb) and 2,4-d (442 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Benzie County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Benzie County — 121 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Benzie County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Benzie County
Closest first, across Benzie County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Pt. Betsie Light/family QuartersUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- Frankfort High SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- Frankfort Union 76Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- Frankfort EZ MartUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- Frankfort Municipal MarinaUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- Bayview Party StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- BAYVIEW PARTY STOREBrownfields · 1900 ft
- City GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- FRANKFORT MANUFACTURING COMPANYBrownfields · 2100 ft
- Pet, IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- Graceland Fruit Coop, IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- GRACELAND FRUIT INCBrownfields · 2300 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Benzie County'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 Benzie County.
Sources Checked
across Benzie County
Severity Distribution
across Benzie County
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Benzie County
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 Benzie County average
Your land is one point inside Benzie County
Everything above resolves to Benzie County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 205K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Benzie County Average
Benzie County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Benzie County
- ●One soil character for all of Benzie County
- ●Frost dates read at Benzie County's scale: Apr 28 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Benzie County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Benzie County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Benzie County, Michigan — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Benzie County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Benzie County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Benzie County average
How we know this about Benzie County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Benzie County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Benzie County
When does frost risk typically end in Benzie County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Benzie County typically lands around Apr 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 May 19.
How long is the growing season in Benzie County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Benzie County sees about 194 frost-free days — roughly Apr 28 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 19 to Oct 25, about 159 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Benzie County?
The federal record around Benzie County is a meaningful one — 121 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (73), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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.
Everything above is measured at Benzie County's scale — its 6b band and its 194-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Benzie County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Michigan's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Benzie County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Benzie County's own scale — its own ~194-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 121 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Benzie County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Benzie County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~194-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Benzie CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 121 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Benzie County's boundary and the 204,606 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~194-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Benzie County sitting wholly inside the North Central Hardwood ForestsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Benzie County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Benzie County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Michigan grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Michigan
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Benzie County — the ~194 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Benzie County's 204,606 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 121 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Benzie Countyread your own land →