Harbor Beach, Michigan, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Harbor 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 Harbor 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 Harbor Beach — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Harbor Beach — the short answer
Harbor Beach, Michigan: USDA zone 6b, about 202 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~202
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 1K 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 Harbor Beach's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Harbor Beach's 202-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Harbor Beach
Each reading below is measured for Harbor Beach itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHarbor Beach runs about 202 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
MeasuredHarbor Beach 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 Harbor Beach is in
Harbor Beach sits in the Huron/Erie Lake Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Harbor Beach's own centroid rather than borrowed from Huron County.
What Grows in Harbor Beach
Every plant below cleared Harbor Beach's own zone 6b and its 202-day season. Each card opens that plant's Michigan profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Harbor Beach?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 20 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 8 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Harbor Beach
Survey cells within 31 miles of Harbor Beach checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 91 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Harbor Beach
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Harbor Beach. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Martin OglenskiUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- Speedy Q Markets #213Underground Storage Tanks · 400 ft
- City Of Harbor Beach #320077Underground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- Harbor Beach Sta.-muffler ShopUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- Harbor Beach Community HospitalUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- Edward GuerneUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- Amoco Oil CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- Harbor Gas StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- Castle OilUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- Huron Laundry & CleanersUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- DowelancoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- CORTEVA AGRISCIENCE LLC - HARBOR BEACH, MICHIGANBrownfields · 1400 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Harbor 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 Harbor Beach.
Total Sites
63
within ~10 miles of Harbor Beach
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Harbor Beach
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Harbor Beach
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 Harbor 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 Harbor Beach average
Your land is one point inside Harbor Beach
Everything above resolves to Harbor Beach as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Harbor Beach Average
Harbor Beach Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Harbor Beach
- ●One soil character for all of Harbor Beach
- ●Frost dates read at Harbor Beach's scale: Apr 20 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Harbor Beach's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Harbor Beach
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Harbor Beach, Michigan — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Harbor Beach averages can't show:
We read public map data around Harbor Beach — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Harbor Beach average
How we know this about Harbor Beach
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 Harbor 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 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 Harbor Beach
When does frost risk typically end in Harbor Beach?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Harbor Beach typically lands around Apr 20, 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 11.
When is the first frost in Harbor Beach?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Harbor Beach typically arrives around Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 25, so the watching starts about Oct 9 — about 202 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Harbor Beach?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Harbor Beach sees about 202 frost-free days — roughly Apr 20 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 11 to Oct 25, about 167 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Harbor Beach?
The federal record around Harbor Beach shows 63 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (35), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Harbor Beach?
From about Oct 9 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 8 (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 8. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Harbor Beach's scale — its 6b band and its 202-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Harbor 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 Harbor Beach’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Harbor Beach's own scale — its own ~202-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,101 acres it covers and 63 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Harbor Beach's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Harbor Beach's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 20 and Nov 8 and the ~202-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 63 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Harbor Beach, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Harbor Beach's boundary and the 1,101 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~202-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Harbor Beach's own centroid, the Huron/Erie Lake PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Harbor Beach 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 Harbor Beach's 1,101 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Huron County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Huron 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 Huron County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Harbor Beach's 1,101 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Harbor 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 1,101 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 Harbor Beach-wide figureread your own land →
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