Cabarrus County, in North Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
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.
Cabarrus County lies within the Piedmont — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Cabarrus County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Cabarrus 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 Cabarrus County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Cabarrus County — the short answer
Cabarrus County, North Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 243 days between hard freezes, across 231K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~243
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 231K 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 Cabarrus County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cabarrus County's 243-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Cabarrus County
Across a year, Cabarrus County accumulates about 4,511 growing degree days above 50°F, about 121 more than the middle North Carolina county — ahead of 54 of North Carolina’s 100 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 1,716 hours below 45°F, 47 fewer than the North Carolina middle of 1,763. 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 Cabarrus County
Across Cabarrus County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Enon, Cecil, and Badin are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.5–6.0, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
42%
Hydric soils
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Cabarrus County
The USDA soil survey maps 78% of Cabarrus County as well drained — but another 22% drains differently: 13% moderately well drained, 8% somewhat poorly drained.
Enon is the most extensive named soil at 16% of mapped acres, then Cecil (14%) and Badin (10%).
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 Cabarrus County
Each reading below is measured for Cabarrus 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 Cabarrus County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — 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 Cabarrus County runs about pH 5.5–6.0, 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
Season length
MeasuredCabarrus County runs about 243 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
MeasuredCabarrus 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 Cabarrus County is in
Cabarrus County sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Cabarrus County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Cabarrus County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 243-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 North Carolina profile.
Is it too late to plant in Cabarrus 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 Feb 17; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 17 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 15 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Cabarrus County
Spotted lanternfly documented 17 miles from Cabarrus County, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle5 documented records
- monarch butterfly17 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Cabarrus County
USGS estimates 10,196 lb of Glyphosate on Cabarrus County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (7,724 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (7,030 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 Cabarrus County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Cabarrus County — 647 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 8 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Cabarrus 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 Cabarrus County
Closest first, across Cabarrus County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SHOP RITE 105Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- COOKS PACKING CO., INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- CVS PHARMACY #3435Brownfields · 0.8 mi
- LITTLE BUCK FOOD STORE #3/L602Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- QUIKTRIP 1030Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- SOUTH UNION 76Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- SHOAF GRADING, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- CAROLINA FAST MART 3Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- J & F DISPOSAL CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- PROPST CONSTRUCTION COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- TRACTOR SUPPLY #1689Brownfields · 1.3 mi
- R.L. WALLACE CONSTRUCTION CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cabarrus 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 Cabarrus County.
Sources Checked
across Cabarrus County
Severity Distribution
across Cabarrus County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cabarrus County, two things run higher than the national average across Cabarrus County — Toxics Release Inventory (44 sites) and Superfund (8 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Cabarrus 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 Cabarrus County average
Your land is one point inside Cabarrus County
Everything above resolves to Cabarrus County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 231K 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 Cabarrus County Average
Cabarrus County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Cabarrus County
- ●One soil character for all of Cabarrus County
- ●Frost dates read at Cabarrus County's scale: Mar 17 to Nov 15
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cabarrus County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Cabarrus County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cabarrus County, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cabarrus County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cabarrus County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cabarrus County average
How we know this about Cabarrus 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 Cabarrus County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Cabarrus County
When does frost risk typically end in Cabarrus County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cabarrus County typically lands around Mar 17, 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 7.
How long is the growing season in Cabarrus County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cabarrus County sees about 243 frost-free days — roughly Mar 17 through Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 7 to Nov 1, about 208 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cabarrus County?
The federal record around Cabarrus County runs heavier than most — 647 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (375), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Cabarrus County's scale — its 8a band and its 243-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cabarrus 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 North Carolina's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Cabarrus County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Cabarrus County's own scale — its own ~243-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 647 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cabarrus County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cabarrus County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~243-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Cabarrus CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 647 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Cabarrus County's boundary and the 231,197 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~243-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Cabarrus County sitting wholly inside the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Cabarrus County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Cabarrus County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every North Carolina grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom North Carolina
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Cabarrus County — the ~243 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 Cabarrus County's 231,197 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 647 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 Cabarrus Countyread your own land →