Rankin County, in Mississippi, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Rankin County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Rankin 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 Rankin County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Rankin County — the short answer
Rankin County, Mississippi: USDA zone 8b, about 278 days between hard freezes, across 496K 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 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~278
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 496K 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 Rankin County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Rankin County's 278-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Rankin County
Across a year, Rankin County accumulates about 5,567 growing degree days above 50°F, about 169 more than the middle Mississippi county — ahead of 48 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 1,018 hours below 45°F, 174 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 Rankin County
Across Rankin County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Providence, Smithdale, and Savannah are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.0–5.3, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Moderately well drained
Prime farmland
24%
Hydric soils
5%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Rankin County
The USDA soil survey maps 39% of Rankin County as moderately well drained — but another 56% drains differently: 28% somewhat poorly drained, 28% well drained.
Providence is the most extensive named soil at 19% of mapped acres, then Smithdale (16%) and Savannah (11%).
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 Rankin County
Each reading below is measured for Rankin 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 Rankin County are moderately well drained, in hydrologic group C — 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 Rankin County runs about pH 5.0–5.3, 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
MeasuredRankin County runs about 278 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
MeasuredRankin 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 Rankin County is in
Rankin County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Southeastern Plains (62%) and Mississippi Valley Loess Plains (39%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Rankin County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Rankin County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 278-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 Rankin 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 26 — 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.
Documented around Rankin County
- monarch butterfly7 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Rankin County
USGS estimates 29,128 lb of Glyphosate on Rankin County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (6,938 lb) and 2,4-d (5,221 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 Rankin County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Rankin County — 602 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 7 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Rankin County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Rankin County
Closest first, across Rankin County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- D's One Stop Food MartUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Southern Pine EPAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- PRAXAIR - BRANDON, MSToxics Release Inventory · 1.5 mi
- Praxair IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- Brandon Express StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- HEDGWOOD BODY SHOPBrownfields · 1.7 mi
- Shiloh Pump StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- University Christian SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- Cefco #535Underground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- Hegwood FinaUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- Rankin County District 5 BarnUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- 121L0002 RANKINNitrate · 2.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Rankin 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 Rankin County.
Sources Checked
across Rankin County
Severity Distribution
across Rankin County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Rankin County, two things run higher than the national average across Rankin County — PFAS (14 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (37 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.
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 Rankin 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 Rankin County average
Your land is one point inside Rankin County
Everything above resolves to Rankin County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 496K 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 Rankin County Average
Rankin County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Rankin County
- ●One soil character for all of Rankin County
- ●Frost dates read at Rankin County's scale: Feb 21 to Nov 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Rankin County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Rankin County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Rankin County, Mississippi — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Rankin County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Rankin County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Rankin County average
How we know this about Rankin 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 Rankin County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Rankin County
When does frost risk typically end in Rankin County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Rankin 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 Rankin County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Rankin County sees about 278 frost-free days — roughly Feb 21 through Nov 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 14 to Nov 12, about 243 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Rankin County?
The federal record around Rankin County runs heavier than most — 602 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (341), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.2 miles 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.
Everything above is measured at Rankin County's scale — its 8b band and its 278-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Rankin 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 Rankin County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Rankin County's own scale — its own ~278-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 602 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Rankin County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Rankin County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~278-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Rankin CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 602 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Rankin County's boundary and the 496,320 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~278-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Rankin County spans, Southeastern Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Rankin County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Rankin 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 Rankin County — the ~278 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 Rankin County's 496,320 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 602 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 Rankin Countyread your own land →