Prentiss County, in Mississippi, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Prentiss County lies within the North Mississippi Hills (Northeast Hills) — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Prentiss County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Prentiss 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 Prentiss County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Prentiss County — the short answer
Prentiss County, Mississippi: USDA zone 8a, about 249 days between hard freezes, across 266K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~249
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 266K 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 8a is Prentiss County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Prentiss County's 249-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Prentiss County
Across a year, Prentiss County accumulates about 4,677 growing degree days above 50°F, about 721 fewer than the middle Mississippi county — ahead of 5 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 1,709 hours below 45°F, 517 more 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 Prentiss County
Across Prentiss County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Smithdale, Luverne, and Savannah are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.6–5.3, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
21%
Hydric soils
5%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Prentiss County
The USDA soil survey maps 54% of Prentiss County as well drained — but another 45% drains differently: 22% moderately well drained, 18% somewhat poorly drained.
Smithdale is the most extensive named soil at 17% of mapped acres, then Luverne (14%) and Savannah (9%).
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 Prentiss County
Each reading below is measured for Prentiss 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 Prentiss 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 Prentiss County runs about pH 4.6–5.3, 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
MeasuredPrentiss County runs about 249 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
MeasuredPrentiss County 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 Prentiss County is in
Prentiss 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 Prentiss County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Prentiss County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 249-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 Prentiss County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 17 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
What gets applied to farmland in Prentiss County
USGS estimates 31,130 lb of Glyphosate on Prentiss County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (6,872 lb) and Dimethenamid-p (6,455 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 Prentiss County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Prentiss County — 184 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 16 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Prentiss County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Prentiss County
Closest first, across Prentiss County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 117F0044 PRENTISSNitrate · 1.7 mi
- Big V JunctionUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- Meadow Creek GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- BIG V WATER ASSOCIATIONPFAS · 2.3 mi
- BOONEVILLE WATER DEPT.PFAS · 2.3 mi
- Booneville Maintenance Hq MshdUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- North Ms Ambulance ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- S & J Ready Mix IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- Tulon & Lena JacksonUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- Walden Saw MillUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- The Deviney Company BoonevilleUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- F W Lellor GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Prentiss 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 Prentiss County.
Total Sites
184
across Prentiss County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
16 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Prentiss County
Severity Distribution
across Prentiss County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Prentiss County, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 16 sites across Prentiss County. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Prentiss 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 Prentiss County average
Your land is one point inside Prentiss County
Everything above resolves to Prentiss County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 266K 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 Prentiss County Average
Prentiss County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Prentiss County
- ●One soil character for all of Prentiss County
- ●Frost dates read at Prentiss County's scale: Mar 13 to Nov 17
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Prentiss County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Prentiss County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Prentiss County, Mississippi — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Prentiss County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Prentiss County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Prentiss County average
How we know this about Prentiss 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 Prentiss County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Prentiss County
When does frost risk typically end in Prentiss County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Prentiss County typically lands around Mar 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 Apr 3.
How long is the growing season in Prentiss County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Prentiss County sees about 249 frost-free days — roughly Mar 13 through Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 3 to Nov 3, about 214 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Prentiss County?
The federal record around Prentiss County shows 184 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (106), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.7 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
Everything above is measured at Prentiss County's scale — its 8a band and its 249-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Prentiss 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 Prentiss County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Prentiss County's own scale — its own ~249-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 184 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Prentiss County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Prentiss County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~249-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Prentiss CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 184 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 1.7 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Prentiss County's boundary and the 265,590 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~249-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Prentiss County sitting wholly inside the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Prentiss 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 Prentiss County — the ~249 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 Prentiss County's 265,590 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 184 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 Prentiss Countyread your own land →