Muskegon Heights, Michigan, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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 Muskegon Heights, 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 Muskegon Heights 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 Muskegon Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Muskegon Heights — the short answer
Muskegon Heights, Michigan: USDA zone 6b, about 203 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 17
- 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
- ~203
- 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 Muskegon Heights's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Muskegon Heights's 203-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Muskegon Heights
Each reading below is measured for Muskegon Heights itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMuskegon Heights 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
MeasuredMuskegon Heights 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 Muskegon Heights is in
Muskegon Heights sits in the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Muskegon Heights's own centroid rather than borrowed from Muskegon County.
What Grows in Muskegon Heights
Every plant below cleared Muskegon Heights's own zone 6b and its 203-day season. Each card opens that plant's Michigan profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Muskegon Heights?
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 20; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 17 (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. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Muskegon Heights
Survey cells within 31 miles of Muskegon Heights checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 90 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Muskegon Heights
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Muskegon Heights. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FAMILY DOLLAR STORESBrownfields · 350 ft
- FORMER MEIER CLEANERSSuperfund · 450 ft
- METAL FINISHING TECHNOLOGYBrownfields · 550 ft
- AMERICAN GREASE STICK COToxics Release Inventory · 600 ft
- AMERICAN GREASE STICK COBrownfields · 600 ft
- MUSKEGON HEIGHTS HOUSING COMMISSIONBrownfields · 1000 ft
- Former Universal CamshaftUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- West Sanford VillageUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- Derby Auto Service CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- BROADWAY STREET SITESuperfund · 1400 ft
- Paul CzekerUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- Sacred Heart Church, Gr. Rpds.Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Muskegon Heights'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 Muskegon Heights.
Total Sites
1,051
within ~10 miles of Muskegon Heights
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
17 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Muskegon Heights
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Muskegon Heights
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Muskegon Heights, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Muskegon Heights — Toxics Release Inventory (85 sites) and Superfund (17 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 Muskegon Heights
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 Muskegon Heights average
Your land is one point inside Muskegon Heights
Everything above resolves to Muskegon Heights 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 Muskegon Heights Average
Muskegon Heights Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Muskegon Heights
- ●One soil character for all of Muskegon Heights
- ●Frost dates read at Muskegon Heights's scale: Apr 17 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Muskegon Heights's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Muskegon Heights
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Muskegon Heights, Michigan — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Muskegon Heights averages can't show:
We read public map data around Muskegon Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Muskegon Heights average
How we know this about Muskegon Heights
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 Muskegon Heights’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 Muskegon Heights
When does frost risk typically end in Muskegon Heights?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Muskegon Heights typically lands around Apr 17, 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 8.
When is the first frost in Muskegon Heights?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Muskegon Heights 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 203 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Muskegon Heights?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Muskegon Heights sees about 203 frost-free days — roughly Apr 17 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 8 to Oct 23, about 168 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Muskegon Heights?
The federal record around Muskegon Heights runs heavier than most — 1,051 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (522), the nearest Brownfields 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 Muskegon Heights?
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 Muskegon Heights's scale — its 6b band and its 203-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Muskegon Heights'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 Muskegon Heights’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Muskegon Heights's own scale — its own ~203-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,038 acres it covers and 1,051 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Muskegon Heights's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Muskegon Heights's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 17 and Nov 6 and the ~203-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,051 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Muskegon Heights, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Muskegon Heights's boundary and the 2,038 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~203-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Muskegon Heights's own centroid, the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Muskegon Heights 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 Muskegon Heights's 2,038 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 Muskegon Heights's 2,038 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Muskegon Heights you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,038 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Muskegon Heights-wide figureread your own land →