Keego Harbor, 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.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Keego Harbor, 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 Keego Harbor 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 Keego Harbor — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Keego Harbor — the short answer
Keego Harbor, Michigan: USDA zone 6a, about 203 days between hard freezes, across 317 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 13
- 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
- ~203
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 317 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 Keego Harbor's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Keego Harbor's 203-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Keego Harbor
Each reading below is measured for Keego Harbor itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredKeego Harbor runs about 203 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
MeasuredKeego Harbor 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 Keego Harbor is in
Keego Harbor sits in the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Keego Harbor's own centroid rather than borrowed from Oakland County.
What Grows in Keego Harbor
Every plant below cleared Keego Harbor's own zone 6a and its 203-day season. Each card opens that plant's Michigan profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Keego Harbor?
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 16; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 13 (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. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Keego Harbor
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Keego Harbor, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Keego Harbor
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Keego Harbor. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Gino SantiaUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- Former Clark Gas StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- M & M CleanersUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- BeechmontUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- DALE'S POWERSPORTS LLCBrownfields · 1100 ft
- Nikalas Motor sportsUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- TWC SERVICEBrownfields · 1400 ft
- Dpw YardUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- Clayton WarehouseUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- Sylvan Auto SupplyUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- NIKOLAS MOTORSPORT INCBrownfields · 2000 ft
- LARRY PAUL REFINISHER INCBrownfields · 2400 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Keego Harbor'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 Keego Harbor.
Total Sites
2,784
within ~10 miles of Keego Harbor
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
5 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Keego Harbor
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Keego Harbor
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Keego Harbor, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 1,413 sites within ~10 miles of Keego Harbor. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in Keego Harbor
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 Keego Harbor average
Your land is one point inside Keego Harbor
Everything above resolves to Keego Harbor as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 317 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 Keego Harbor Average
Keego Harbor Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Keego Harbor
- ●One soil character for all of Keego Harbor
- ●Frost dates read at Keego Harbor's scale: Apr 13 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Keego Harbor's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Keego Harbor
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Keego Harbor, Michigan — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Keego Harbor averages can't show:
We read public map data around Keego Harbor — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Keego Harbor average
How we know this about Keego Harbor
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 Keego Harbor’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 Keego Harbor
When does frost risk typically end in Keego Harbor?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Keego Harbor typically lands around Apr 13, 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 4.
When is the first frost in Keego Harbor?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Keego Harbor 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 203 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Keego Harbor?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Keego Harbor sees about 203 frost-free days — roughly Apr 13 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 4 to Oct 19, about 168 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Keego Harbor?
The federal record around Keego Harbor is a meaningful one — 2,784 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (1,413), 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 Keego Harbor?
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 Keego Harbor's scale — its 6a band and its 203-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Keego Harbor'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 Keego Harbor’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Keego Harbor's own scale — its own ~203-day season between 28°F freezes, the 317 acres it covers and 2,784 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Keego Harbor's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Keego Harbor's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 13 and Nov 2 and the ~203-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,784 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Keego Harbor, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Keego Harbor's boundary and the 317 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~203-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Keego Harbor's own centroid, the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Keego Harborlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Keego Harbor's 317 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Oakland County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Oakland 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 Oakland County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Keego Harbor's 317 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Keego Harbor you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 317 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 Keego Harbor-wide figureread your own land →