Bridgetown, Mississippi, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
These conditions suit cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Bridgetown, 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 Bridgetown 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 Bridgetown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Bridgetown — the short answer
Bridgetown, Mississippi: USDA zone 8a, about 259 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~259
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town 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 8a is Bridgetown's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bridgetown's 259-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Bridgetown
Each reading below is measured for Bridgetown itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBridgetown runs about 259 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
MeasuredBridgetown sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
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 Bridgetown is in
Bridgetown sits in the Mississippi Valley Loess Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Bridgetown's own centroid rather than borrowed from DeSoto County.
What Grows in Bridgetown
Every plant below cleared Bridgetown's own zone 8a and its 259-day season. Each card opens that plant's Mississippi profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Bridgetown?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 8 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 22 — 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 Bridgetown
Survey cells within 31 miles of Bridgetown checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 190 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Bridgetown
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Bridgetown. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Bridgetown MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Desoto Paving CompanyUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- C T S TRUCK SERVICEBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- CITY OF SOUTHAVENPFAS · 2.0 mi
- Mike's Time SaverUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- Kaddy Korner GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- Pop's Express PhUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- WITT WORKS ENVIRONMENTAL, LLCBrownfields · 3.2 mi
- Pleasant Hill Farm StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
- J A Summers & SonUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
- D B Bridgeforth & CompanyUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
- Pop's ExpressUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bridgetown'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 Bridgetown.
Total Sites
612
within ~10 miles of Bridgetown
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Bridgetown
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Bridgetown
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bridgetown, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Bridgetown — PFAS (8 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (58 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Bridgetown
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 Bridgetown average
Your land is one point inside Bridgetown
Everything above resolves to Bridgetown 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 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 Bridgetown Average
Bridgetown Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Bridgetown
- ●One soil character for all of Bridgetown
- ●Frost dates read at Bridgetown's scale: Mar 8 to Nov 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bridgetown's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Bridgetown
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bridgetown, Mississippi — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bridgetown averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bridgetown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bridgetown average
How we know this about Bridgetown
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 Bridgetown’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 Bridgetown
When does frost risk typically end in Bridgetown?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bridgetown typically lands around Mar 8, 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 Mar 29.
When is the first frost in Bridgetown?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Bridgetown typically arrives around Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 8, so the watching starts about Oct 23 — about 259 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Bridgetown?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bridgetown sees about 259 frost-free days — roughly Mar 8 through Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 29 to Nov 8, about 224 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bridgetown?
The federal record around Bridgetown is a meaningful one — 612 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (319), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Bridgetown?
From about Oct 23 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 22 (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 22. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Bridgetown's scale — its 8a band and its 259-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bridgetown'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 Bridgetown’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Bridgetown's own scale — its own ~259-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,388 acres it covers and 612 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bridgetown's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bridgetown's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 8 and Nov 22 and the ~259-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 612 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Bridgetown, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Bridgetown's boundary and the 1,388 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~259-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Bridgetown's own centroid, the Mississippi Valley Loess PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Bridgetown 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 Bridgetown's 1,388 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom DeSoto County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom DeSoto County
- The growing challenges every Mississippi grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Mississippi
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom DeSoto County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bridgetown's 1,388 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Bridgetown you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,388 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Bridgetown-wide figureread your own land →
More in Mississippi
Wider growing context
What grows across MississippiBridgetown sits outside our named growing regions, so Mississippi as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides