Jones County, in Mississippi, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Jones County lies within the Piney Woods / Pine Belt — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Jones County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Jones 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 Jones County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Jones County — the short answer
Jones County, Mississippi: USDA zone 8b, about 281 days between hard freezes, across 445K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~281
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 445K 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 Jones County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Jones County's 281-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Jones County
Across a year, Jones County accumulates about 5,710 growing degree days above 50°F, about 312 more than the middle Mississippi county — ahead of 58 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 947 hours below 45°F, 245 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 Jones County
Across Jones County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Smithdale, Savannah, and Malbis are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.6–5.0, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
26%
Hydric soils
16%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Jones County
The USDA soil survey maps 48% of Jones County as well drained — but another 50% drains differently: 23% moderately well drained, 17% poorly drained.
Smithdale is the most extensive named soil at 16% of mapped acres, then Savannah (15%) and Malbis (15%).
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 Jones County
Each reading below is measured for Jones 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 Jones County are well drained, in hydrologic group B — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Jones County runs about pH 4.6–5.0, 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
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 16% of Jones County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredJones County runs about 281 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
The kind of country Jones County is in
Jones County sits in the Southeastern Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Jones County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Jones County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 281-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 Jones County?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 22; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 19 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 27 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. And with a calendar this mild, the honest answer is that planting barely stops — winter opens seasons colder regions never see.
What gets applied to farmland in Jones County
USGS estimates 7,098 lb of Glyphosate on Jones County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (5,299 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (2,648 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 Jones County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Jones County — 503 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 28 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
There's a meaningful federal record across Jones 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 Jones County
Closest first, across Jones County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Paul Butler GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- Joe's Service StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- Keith's Superstore #105Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- ROGERS AUTO PARTS INCBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- City Of EllisvilleUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- Pit StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- 067K0031 JONESNitrate · 1.6 mi
- South Jones High SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- Maintenance Area HeadquartersUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- Beech Shell StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- Rogers Auto PartsUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- 067K0002 JONESNitrate · 1.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Jones 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 Jones County.
Total Sites
503
across Jones County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
28 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Jones County
Severity Distribution
across Jones County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Jones County, two things run higher than the national average across Jones County — PFAS (7 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (314 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Jones 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 Jones County average
Your land is one point inside Jones County
Everything above resolves to Jones County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 445K 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 Jones County Average
Jones County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Jones County
- ●One soil character for all of Jones County
- ●Frost dates read at Jones County's scale: Feb 19 to Nov 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Jones County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Jones County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Jones County, Mississippi — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Jones County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Jones County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Jones County average
How we know this about Jones 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 Jones County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Jones County
When does frost risk typically end in Jones County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Jones County typically lands around Feb 19, 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 12.
How long is the growing season in Jones County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Jones County sees about 281 frost-free days — roughly Feb 19 through Nov 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 12 to Nov 13, about 246 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Jones County?
The federal record around Jones County is a meaningful one — 503 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (314), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Jones County's scale — its 8b band and its 281-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Jones 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 Jones County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Jones County's own scale — its own ~281-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 503 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Jones County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Jones County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~281-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Jones CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 503 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Jones County's boundary and the 444,700 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~281-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Jones County sitting wholly inside the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Jones 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 Jones County — the ~281 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 Jones County's 444,700 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 503 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 Jones Countyread your own land →