Cutlerville, Michigan, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
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.
Even in Cutlerville, 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 Cutlerville 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 Cutlerville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Cutlerville — the short answer
Cutlerville, Michigan: USDA zone 6a, about 184 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~184
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 4K 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 6a is Cutlerville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cutlerville's 184-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cutlerville
Each reading below is measured for Cutlerville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCutlerville runs about 184 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
MeasuredCutlerville sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Cutlerville is in
Cutlerville sits in the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Cutlerville's own centroid rather than borrowed from Kent County.
What Grows in Cutlerville
Every plant below cleared Cutlerville's own zone 6a and its 184-day season. Each card opens that plant's Michigan profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Cutlerville?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 27; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 24 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 25 — 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 Cutlerville
Survey cells within 31 miles of Cutlerville checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 59 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Cutlerville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cutlerville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Admiral Petroleum II LLC #205Underground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- CLOCK CONVERSIONSBrownfields · 1600 ft
- Gerrit BrosUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- TRACTOR SUPPLY COMPANY OF MICHIGAN LLCBrownfields · 2400 ft
- S AND R EQUIPMENT COBrownfields · 2400 ft
- WALGREEN COBrownfields · 2400 ft
- MARKS BODY SHOPBrownfields · 2500 ft
- ADVANCE AUTO PARTSBrownfields · 2500 ft
- Sunoco Gas IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- 6729 S Division Ave (Former BP Station)Underground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- AUTOZONE INCBrownfields · 2600 ft
- Msi #637Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cutlerville'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 Cutlerville.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cutlerville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cutlerville
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cutlerville, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Cutlerville — Toxics Release Inventory (212 sites) and Brownfields (1,267 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in Cutlerville
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 Cutlerville average
Your land is one point inside Cutlerville
Everything above resolves to Cutlerville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 Cutlerville Average
Cutlerville Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Cutlerville
- ●One soil character for all of Cutlerville
- ●Frost dates read at Cutlerville's scale: Apr 24 to Oct 25
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cutlerville's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cutlerville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cutlerville, Michigan — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cutlerville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cutlerville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cutlerville average
How we know this about Cutlerville
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 Cutlerville’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 Cutlerville
When does frost risk typically end in Cutlerville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cutlerville typically lands around Apr 24, 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 15.
When is the first frost in Cutlerville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cutlerville typically arrives around Oct 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 11, so the watching starts about Sep 25 — about 184 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Cutlerville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cutlerville sees about 184 frost-free days — roughly Apr 24 through Oct 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 15 to Oct 11, about 149 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cutlerville?
The federal record around Cutlerville runs heavier than most — 2,606 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (1,267), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Cutlerville?
From about Sep 25 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 Oct 25 (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 Oct 25. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Cutlerville's scale — its 6a band and its 184-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cutlerville'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 Cutlerville’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Cutlerville's own scale — its own ~184-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,670 acres it covers and 2,606 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cutlerville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cutlerville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 24 and Oct 25 and the ~184-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,606 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cutlerville, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cutlerville's boundary and the 3,670 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~184-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Cutlerville's own centroid, the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Cutlerville checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Cutlerville's 3,670 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Kent County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Kent County
- The growing challenges every Michigan grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Michigan
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Kent County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Cutlerville's 3,670 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cutlerville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,670 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Cutlerville-wide figureread your own land →
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