Fruitport, Michigan, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — 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 Fruitport, 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 Fruitport 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 Fruitport — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Fruitport — the short answer
Fruitport, Michigan: USDA zone 6b, about 201 days between hard freezes, across 580 acres of town.
- 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 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~201
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 580 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 Fruitport's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Fruitport's 201-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Fruitport
Each reading below is measured for Fruitport itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFruitport runs about 201 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
MeasuredFruitport 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 Fruitport is in
Fruitport sits in the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Fruitport's own centroid rather than borrowed from Muskegon County.
What Grows in Fruitport
Every plant below cleared Fruitport's own zone 6b and its 201-day season. Each card opens that plant's Michigan profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Fruitport?
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 2 — 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 Fruitport
Survey cells within 31 miles of Fruitport checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 83 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Fruitport
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Fruitport. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Fruitport MobilUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- LUNDBERG HARDWAREBrownfields · 700 ft
- Lundberg HardwareUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- N J FOX & SONS INCBrownfields · 1100 ft
- SPEEDWAY LLCBrownfields · 1200 ft
- Speedway #6293Underground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- RAM ELECTRONICSBrownfields · 1300 ft
- Maintenance GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- Coop's Dock & DeliUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- FRUITPORT CARWASH LLCBrownfields · 1900 ft
- Bethel Baptist ChurchUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- The Storage Group (Brauns Auto Sales Inc)Underground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Fruitport'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 Fruitport.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Fruitport
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Fruitport
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Fruitport, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Fruitport — Toxics Release Inventory (98 sites) and PFAS (10 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.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Fruitport
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 Fruitport average
Your land is one point inside Fruitport
Everything above resolves to Fruitport as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 580 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 Fruitport Average
Fruitport Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Fruitport
- ●One soil character for all of Fruitport
- ●Frost dates read at Fruitport's scale: Apr 15 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Fruitport's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Fruitport
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Fruitport, Michigan — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Fruitport averages can't show:
We read public map data around Fruitport — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Fruitport average
How we know this about Fruitport
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 Fruitport’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 Fruitport
When does frost risk typically end in Fruitport?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Fruitport 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 Fruitport?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Fruitport typically arrives around Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 19, so the watching starts about Oct 3 — about 201 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Fruitport?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Fruitport sees about 201 frost-free days — roughly Apr 15 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 6 to Oct 19, about 166 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Fruitport?
The federal record around Fruitport runs heavier than most — 1,084 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (516), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Fruitport?
From about Oct 3 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 2 (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 2. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Fruitport's scale — its 6b band and its 201-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Fruitport'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 Fruitport’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Fruitport's own scale — its own ~201-day season between 28°F freezes, the 580 acres it covers and 1,084 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Fruitport's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Fruitport's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 15 and Nov 2 and the ~201-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,084 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Fruitport, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Fruitport's boundary and the 580 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~201-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Fruitport's own centroid, the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Fruitport 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 Fruitport's 580 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Muskegon County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Muskegon 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 Muskegon County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Fruitport's 580 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Fruitport you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 580 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Fruitport-wide figureread your own land →