Hinds County, in Mississippi, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Expect cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Hinds County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Hinds County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Hinds County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Hinds County — the short answer
Hinds County, Mississippi: USDA zone 8b, about 277 days between hard freezes, across 557K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~277
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 557K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 8b is Hinds County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Hinds County's 277-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Hinds County
Across a year, Hinds County accumulates about 5,754 growing degree days above 50°F, about 356 more than the middle Mississippi county — ahead of 62 of Mississippi’s 82 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Winter banks about 944 hours below 45°F, 248 fewer than the Mississippi middle of 1,192. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Hinds County
Across Hinds County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Memphis, Loring, and Riedtown are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.3, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Moderately well drained
Prime farmland
27%
Hydric soils
3%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Hinds County
The USDA soil survey maps 63% of Hinds County as moderately well drained — but another 36% drains differently: 31% well drained, 4% somewhat poorly drained.
Memphis is the most extensive named soil at 27% of mapped acres, then Loring (23%) and Riedtown (13%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Hinds County
Each reading below is measured for Hinds County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Hinds County are moderately well drained, in hydrologic group B — roughly the middle of the drainage range.
This is close to the middle most vegetables prefer: it holds enough water to carry a crop between rains without staying waterlogged. The catch is that a wet spring or a low corner can still tip it soggy.
Plant on the site as-is for most crops, but keep the lowest, slowest-draining beds for moisture-tolerant plantings.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Hinds County runs about pH 5.3, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredHinds County runs about 277 days between hard freezes — close to year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredHinds County sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b.
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 Hinds County is in
Hinds County sits in the Mississippi Valley Loess Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Hinds County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Hinds County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 277-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Mississippi profile.
Is it too late to plant in Hinds County?
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 Jan 24; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 21 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 25 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
Documented around Hinds County
- monarch butterfly128 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Hinds County
USGS estimates 38,535 lb of Glyphosate on Hinds County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (17,370 lb) and Metolachlor-s (16,177 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Hinds County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Hinds County — 1,347 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 6 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Hinds County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Hinds County
Closest first, across Hinds County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- UNKNOWN 049Nitrate · 1.8 mi
- Magna American CorporationUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- L & K GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- 049L0011 HINDSNitrate · 1.9 mi
- The Lo StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- Rymnmsq5000Underground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- Midway Pit Stop LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- Magna America BuildingUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- TRAWEEK AUTO SALES AND SERVICEBrownfields · 2.4 mi
- Bst Raymond Dms Co 72164Underground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- Bailey FarmUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- former Bebo's ChevronUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Hinds County'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 Hinds County.
Total Sites
1,347
across Hinds County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
6 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Hinds County
Severity Distribution
across Hinds County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Hinds County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 840 sites across Hinds County. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Hinds County
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 Hinds County average
Your land is one point inside Hinds County
Everything above resolves to Hinds County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 557K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Hinds County Average
Hinds County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Hinds County
- ●One soil character for all of Hinds County
- ●Frost dates read at Hinds County's scale: Feb 21 to Nov 25
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Hinds County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Hinds County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Hinds County, Mississippi — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Hinds County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Hinds County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hinds County average
How we know this about Hinds County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Hinds County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Hinds County
When does frost risk typically end in Hinds County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Hinds County typically lands around Feb 21, 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 14.
How long is the growing season in Hinds County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Hinds County sees about 277 frost-free days — roughly Feb 21 through Nov 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 14 to Nov 11, about 242 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Hinds County?
The federal record around Hinds County is a meaningful one — 1,347 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (840), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.8 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.
Everything above is measured at Hinds County's scale — its 8b band and its 277-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Hinds County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Mississippi's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Hinds County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Hinds County's own scale — its own ~277-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 1,347 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Hinds County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Hinds County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~277-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Hinds CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 1,347 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 1.8 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Hinds County's boundary and the 556,700 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~277-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Hinds County sitting wholly inside the Mississippi Valley Loess PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Hinds County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Hinds County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Mississippi grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Mississippi
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Hinds County — the ~277 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Hinds County's 556,700 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 1,347 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Hinds Countyread your own land →