Ferrysburg, Michigan, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Ferrysburg, 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 Ferrysburg 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 Ferrysburg — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Ferrysburg — the short answer
Ferrysburg, Michigan: USDA zone 6b, about 205 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~205
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 2K 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 6b is Ferrysburg's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Ferrysburg's 205-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Ferrysburg
Each reading below is measured for Ferrysburg itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFerrysburg runs about 205 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredFerrysburg 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 Ferrysburg is in
Ferrysburg sits in the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Ferrysburg's own centroid rather than borrowed from Ottawa County.
What Grows in Ferrysburg
Every plant below cleared Ferrysburg's own zone 6b and its 205-day season. Each card opens that plant's Michigan profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Ferrysburg?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. 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 Nov 6 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Ferrysburg
Survey cells within 31 miles of Ferrysburg checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 82 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Ferrysburg
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Ferrysburg. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BUCKEYE TERMINALS, LLCBrownfields · 1300 ft
- Koch Fuels, IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- FERRYSBURG WASH CENTER LLCBrownfields · 1700 ft
- SD ENTERPRISESBrownfields · 2400 ft
- WYLIE ELECTRIC MOTOR SERVICE CO INCBrownfields · 2500 ft
- NORTH SHORE MACHINE WORKS INCBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- Holtrop Concrete ProductUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- City Of FerrysburgUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- WOLVERINE PIPELINE COMPANYBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- TELCO TOOLS INCBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- NEW RULES MARKETINGBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- Mckellips & Sons IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Ferrysburg'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 Ferrysburg.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Ferrysburg
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Ferrysburg
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Ferrysburg, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Ferrysburg — Toxics Release Inventory (90 sites) and Superfund (12 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.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Ferrysburg
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 Ferrysburg average
Your land is one point inside Ferrysburg
Everything above resolves to Ferrysburg as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 city 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 Ferrysburg Average
Ferrysburg Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Ferrysburg
- ●One soil character for all of Ferrysburg
- ●Frost dates read at Ferrysburg's scale: Apr 15 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Ferrysburg's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Ferrysburg
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Ferrysburg, Michigan — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Ferrysburg averages can't show:
We read public map data around Ferrysburg — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Ferrysburg average
How we know this about Ferrysburg
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Ferrysburg’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Ferrysburg
When does frost risk typically end in Ferrysburg?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Ferrysburg 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.
When is the first frost in Ferrysburg?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Ferrysburg typically arrives around Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 23, so the watching starts about Oct 7 — about 205 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Ferrysburg?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Ferrysburg sees about 205 frost-free days — roughly Apr 15 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 6 to Oct 23, about 170 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Ferrysburg?
The federal record around Ferrysburg runs heavier than most — 927 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (428), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.2 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 Ferrysburg?
From about Oct 7 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 Nov 6 (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 Nov 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Ferrysburg's scale — its 6b band and its 205-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Ferrysburg'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 Ferrysburg’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Ferrysburg's own scale — its own ~205-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,914 acres it covers and 927 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Ferrysburg's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Ferrysburg's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 15 and Nov 6 and the ~205-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 927 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Ferrysburg, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Ferrysburg's boundary and the 1,914 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~205-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Ferrysburg's own centroid, the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Ferrysburg 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 Ferrysburg's 1,914 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Ottawa County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Ottawa 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 Ottawa County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Ferrysburg's 1,914 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Ferrysburg you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,914 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 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 Ferrysburg-wide figureread your own land →
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