Tunica County, in Mississippi, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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.
Tunica 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
Tunica County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Tunica 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 Tunica County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Tunica County — the short answer
Tunica County, Mississippi: USDA zone 8a, about 269 days between hard freezes, across 291K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~269
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 291K 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 Tunica County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Tunica County's 269-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Tunica County
Across a year, Tunica County accumulates about 5,046 growing degree days above 50°F, about 352 fewer than the middle Mississippi county — ahead of 19 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 1,635 hours below 45°F, 443 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 Tunica County
Across Tunica County, the ground is predominantly Vertisols, where Sharkey, Tensas, and Dundee are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a clay surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.3–6.7, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Vertisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
61%
Hydric soils
68%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Tunica County
The USDA soil survey maps 48% of Tunica County as poorly drained — but another 43% drains differently: 29% somewhat poorly drained, 5% well drained.
Sharkey is the most extensive named soil at 52% of mapped acres, then Tensas (7%) and Dundee (5%).
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 Tunica County
Each reading below is measured for Tunica 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 Tunica 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 Tunica County runs about pH 5.3–6.7, 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
MeasuredTunica County runs about 269 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
MeasuredTunica 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 Tunica County is in
Tunica 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 Tunica County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Tunica County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 269-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 Tunica 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 31; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 24 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. In a climate this gentle, “too late” hardly applies — the question becomes which crops prefer the cooler months ahead.
Documented around Tunica County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Tunica County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 221 miles off. What to watch for.
What gets applied to farmland in Tunica County
USGS estimates 327,389 lb of Glyphosate on Tunica County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (140,175 lb) and Metolachlor-s (99,431 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 Tunica County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Tunica County — 80 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Tunica 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 Tunica County
Closest first, across Tunica County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- TUNICA AIR SERVICE INCBrownfields · 2100 ft
- DREXEL CHEMICAL COBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- DREXEL CHEMICAL COToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- D & R GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Mahan GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- TOWN OF TUNICAPFAS · 1.5 mi
- TUNICA COUNTY UTILITY DISTRICTPFAS · 1.5 mi
- TUNICA FARM EQUIPMENT COMPANY INCBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- Ms Department Of TransportationUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- Hendrix Oil IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- Tunica Farm Equipment CompanyUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- J W & S OwenUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Tunica 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 Tunica County.
Total Sites
80
across Tunica County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Tunica County
Severity Distribution
across Tunica County
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
Check your specific parcel in Tunica 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 Tunica County average
Your land is one point inside Tunica County
Everything above resolves to Tunica County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 291K 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 Tunica County Average
Tunica County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Tunica County
- ●One soil character for all of Tunica County
- ●Frost dates read at Tunica County's scale: Feb 28 to Nov 24
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Tunica County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Tunica County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Tunica County, Mississippi — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Tunica County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Tunica County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Tunica County average
How we know this about Tunica 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 Tunica County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Tunica County
When does frost risk typically end in Tunica County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Tunica County typically lands around Feb 28, 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 21.
How long is the growing season in Tunica County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Tunica County sees about 269 frost-free days — roughly Feb 28 through Nov 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 21 to Nov 10, about 234 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Tunica County?
The federal record around Tunica County shows 80 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (49), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.4 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 Tunica County's scale — its 8a band and its 269-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Tunica 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 Tunica County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Tunica County's own scale — its own ~269-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 80 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Tunica County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Tunica County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~269-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Tunica CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 80 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 0.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Tunica County's boundary and the 290,643 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~269-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Tunica County sitting wholly inside the Mississippi Alluvial PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Tunica 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 Tunica County — the ~269 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 Tunica County's 290,643 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 80 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 Tunica Countyread your own land →