Sharkey 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.
Growers here do well with cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Sharkey County lies within the Mississippi Delta — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Sharkey County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Sharkey 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 Sharkey County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Sharkey County — the short answer
Sharkey County, Mississippi: USDA zone 8b, about 285 days between hard freezes, across 276K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~285
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 276K 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 Sharkey County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Sharkey County's 285-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Sharkey County
Across a year, Sharkey County accumulates about 5,696 growing degree days above 50°F, about 298 more than the middle Mississippi county — ahead of 57 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 1,043 hours below 45°F, 149 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 Sharkey County
Across Sharkey County, the ground is predominantly Vertisols, where Sharkey, Alligator, and Commerce are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a clay surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.3–6.8, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Vertisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
46%
Hydric soils
81%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Sharkey County
The USDA soil survey maps 75% of Sharkey County as poorly drained — but another 22% drains differently: 18% somewhat poorly drained, 4% very poorly drained.
Sharkey is the most extensive named soil at 45% of mapped acres, then Alligator (18%) and Commerce (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 Sharkey County
Each reading below is measured for Sharkey 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 Sharkey County are poorly drained, in hydrologic group D — ground that sheds water slowly.
Beds can stay saturated for days after heavy rain, and the roots of most vegetables, berries, and fruit trees suffocate or rot in soil that never drains.
Raised beds or mounded rows lift roots above the wet zone; choose water-tolerant crops for the lowest spots.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Sharkey County runs about pH 6.3–6.8, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredSharkey County runs about 285 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
MeasuredSharkey 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 Sharkey County is in
Sharkey County sits in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Sharkey County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Sharkey County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 285-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 Sharkey 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 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 18 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 30 — 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 Sharkey County
USGS estimates 59,015 lb of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s on Sharkey County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (56,967 lb) and Metolachlor-s (34,761 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 Sharkey County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Sharkey County — 83 documented sites across 4 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 brownfield sites. Former commercial or industrial land where legacy contamination may persist.
The federal record across Sharkey 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 Sharkey County
Closest first, across Sharkey County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- G C Cortright FarmsUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- Mdot Rolling Fork Maintenance HeadquartersUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- Chevron Mini Mart #4Underground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- Rolling Fork GulfUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- Plantation View One StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- Twin County Electric Power AssociationUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- Southern Implement CompanyUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- School Bus ShopUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- Carson Southland StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- 125E0004 SHARKEYNitrate · 2.9 mi
- Bst Rolling Fork 73149Underground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- 125E0015 SHARKEYNitrate · 3.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Sharkey 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 Sharkey County.
Sources Checked
across Sharkey County
Severity Distribution
across Sharkey County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Sharkey County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 40 sites across Sharkey County. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Sharkey 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 Sharkey County average
Your land is one point inside Sharkey County
Everything above resolves to Sharkey County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 276K 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 Sharkey County Average
Sharkey County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Sharkey County
- ●One soil character for all of Sharkey County
- ●Frost dates read at Sharkey County's scale: Feb 18 to Nov 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Sharkey County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Sharkey County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Sharkey County, Mississippi — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Sharkey County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Sharkey County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Sharkey County average
How we know this about Sharkey 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 Sharkey County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Sharkey County
When does frost risk typically end in Sharkey County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Sharkey County typically lands around Feb 18, 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 11.
How long is the growing season in Sharkey County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Sharkey County sees about 285 frost-free days — roughly Feb 18 through Nov 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 11 to Nov 16, about 250 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Sharkey County?
The federal record around Sharkey County shows 83 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (40), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 2.6 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 Sharkey County's scale — its 8b band and its 285-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Sharkey 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 Sharkey County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Sharkey County's own scale — its own ~285-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 83 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Sharkey County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Sharkey County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~285-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Sharkey CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 83 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 2.6 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Sharkey County's boundary and the 276,301 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~285-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Sharkey County sitting wholly inside the Mississippi Alluvial PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Sharkey 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 Sharkey County — the ~285 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 Sharkey County's 276,301 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 83 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 Sharkey Countyread your own land →