Grand Beach, Michigan, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
The conditions favor cabbage, blueberry, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Grand Beach, 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 Grand Beach 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 Grand Beach — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Grand Beach — the short answer
Grand Beach, Michigan: USDA zone 6a, about 225 days between hard freezes, across 582 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~225
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 582 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 Grand Beach's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Grand Beach's 225-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Grand Beach
Each reading below is measured for Grand Beach itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredGrand Beach runs about 225 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
MeasuredGrand Beach 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 Grand Beach is in
Grand Beach sits in the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Grand Beach's own centroid rather than borrowed from Berrien County.
What Grows in Grand Beach
Every plant below cleared Grand Beach's own zone 6a and its 225-day season. Each card opens that plant's Michigan profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Grand Beach?
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 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 16 — 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 Grand Beach
Spotted lanternfly documented 18 miles from Grand Beach, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Grand Beach
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Grand Beach. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Village Of Grand BeachUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- SHUBERT COLLISION CENTER LLCBrownfields · 2400 ft
- Rengo EquitiesUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- MobilUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- J-iv VentureUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- Central Transport IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- Berry Metal CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- IN DOT INDIANA TOLL ROAD SERVICE AREA 2 NORTHUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- Village Of MichianaUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- IMPERIAL CO NEXT DOOR STORE 103Brownfields · 1.6 mi
- Phillips 66 Co #024058Underground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- Former Turley's ServicesUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Grand Beach'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 Grand Beach.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Grand Beach
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Grand Beach
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Grand Beach, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 8 sites within ~10 miles of Grand Beach. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Grand Beach
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 Grand Beach average
Your land is one point inside Grand Beach
Everything above resolves to Grand Beach as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 582 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 Grand Beach Average
Grand Beach Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Grand Beach
- ●One soil character for all of Grand Beach
- ●Frost dates read at Grand Beach's scale: Apr 5 to Nov 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Grand Beach's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Grand Beach
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Grand Beach, Michigan — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Grand Beach averages can't show:
We read public map data around Grand Beach — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Grand Beach average
How we know this about Grand Beach
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 Grand Beach’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 Grand Beach
When does frost risk typically end in Grand Beach?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Grand Beach typically lands around Apr 5, 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 Apr 26.
When is the first frost in Grand Beach?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Grand Beach typically arrives around Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 2, so the watching starts about Oct 17 — about 225 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Grand Beach?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Grand Beach sees about 225 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Nov 2, about 190 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Grand Beach?
The federal record around Grand Beach is a meaningful one — 401 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (235), 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Grand Beach?
From about Oct 17 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 16 (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 16. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Grand Beach's scale — its 6a band and its 225-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Grand Beach'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 Grand Beach’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Grand Beach's own scale — its own ~225-day season between 28°F freezes, the 582 acres it covers and 401 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Grand Beach's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Grand Beach's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Nov 16 and the ~225-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 401 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Grand Beach, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Grand Beach's boundary and the 582 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~225-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Grand Beach's own centroid, the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Grand Beachlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Grand Beach's 582 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Berrien County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Berrien 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 Berrien County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Grand Beach's 582 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Grand Beach you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 582 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Grand Beach-wide figureread your own land →