Kalamazoo County, in Michigan, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Kalamazoo County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Kalamazoo 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 Kalamazoo County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Kalamazoo County — the short answer
Kalamazoo County, Michigan: USDA zone 6a, about 198 days between hard freezes, across 360K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~198
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 360K 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 6a is Kalamazoo County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Kalamazoo County's 198-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Kalamazoo County
Across a year, Kalamazoo County accumulates about 2,579 growing degree days above 50°F, about 479 more than the middle Michigan county — ahead of 76 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 Kalamazoo County
Across Kalamazoo County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Kalamazoo, Oshtemo, and Coloma are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.8–6.2, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
41%
Hydric soils
16%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Kalamazoo County
The USDA soil survey maps 62% of Kalamazoo County as well drained — but another 27% drains differently: 11% very poorly drained, 6% somewhat excessively drained.
Kalamazoo is the most extensive named soil at 30% of mapped acres, then Oshtemo (20%) and Coloma (7%).
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 Kalamazoo County
Each reading below is measured for Kalamazoo 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 Kalamazoo County are well 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 Kalamazoo County runs about pH 5.8–6.2, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 16% of Kalamazoo County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredKalamazoo County runs about 198 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
The kind of country Kalamazoo County is in
Kalamazoo County sits in the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Kalamazoo County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Kalamazoo County's own USDA zone 6a and its own 198-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 Kalamazoo 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 18; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 15 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 30 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Late in the year the fall bench takes over — quick greens, radishes, and garlic that repays you next summer.
Documented around Kalamazoo County
Spotted lanternfly documented 19 miles from Kalamazoo County, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle18 documented records
- monarch butterfly228 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Kalamazoo County
USGS estimates 97,107 lb of Glyphosate on Kalamazoo County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acetochlor (35,864 lb) and Atrazine (28,880 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 Kalamazoo County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Kalamazoo County — 1,543 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 16 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Kalamazoo County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Kalamazoo County
Closest first, across Kalamazoo County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Kalamazoo County Rd CommissionUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- MAC'S CONVENIENCE STORES LLCBrownfields · 650 ft
- BUNTING BEARINGS CORPBrownfields · 650 ft
- BUNTING BEARINGS CORPToxics Release Inventory · 650 ft
- Southland Disposal Service IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- Liberty Auto SalesUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- Wheeler-Blaney CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- SOUTHLAND DISPOSAL COBrownfields · 900 ft
- HUMPHREY PRODUCTSBrownfields · 1000 ft
- HUMPHREY PRODUCTSToxics Release Inventory · 1000 ft
- VAN TUINEN PAINTING INCBrownfields · 1000 ft
- Humphrey ProductsUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Kalamazoo 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 Kalamazoo County.
Sources Checked
across Kalamazoo County
Severity Distribution
across Kalamazoo 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 Kalamazoo 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 Kalamazoo County average
Your land is one point inside Kalamazoo County
Everything above resolves to Kalamazoo County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 360K 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 Kalamazoo County Average
Kalamazoo County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Kalamazoo County
- ●One soil character for all of Kalamazoo County
- ●Frost dates read at Kalamazoo County's scale: Apr 15 to Oct 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Kalamazoo County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Kalamazoo County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Kalamazoo County, Michigan — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Kalamazoo County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Kalamazoo County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Kalamazoo County average
How we know this about Kalamazoo 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 Kalamazoo County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Kalamazoo County
When does frost risk typically end in Kalamazoo County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Kalamazoo County typically lands around Apr 15, 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 6.
How long is the growing season in Kalamazoo County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Kalamazoo County sees about 198 frost-free days — roughly Apr 15 through Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 6 to Oct 16, about 163 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Kalamazoo County?
The federal record around Kalamazoo County runs heavier than most — 1,543 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (685), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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.
Everything above is measured at Kalamazoo County's scale — its 6a band and its 198-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Kalamazoo 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 Kalamazoo County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Kalamazoo County's own scale — its own ~198-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 1,543 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Kalamazoo County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Kalamazoo County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~198-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Kalamazoo CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 1,543 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Kalamazoo County's boundary and the 359,653 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~198-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Kalamazoo County sitting wholly inside the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Kalamazoo County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Kalamazoo 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 Kalamazoo County — the ~198 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 Kalamazoo County's 359,653 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 1,543 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 Kalamazoo Countyread your own land →