Bamberg County, in South Carolina, 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.
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.
Bamberg County lies within Tidewater & Chesapeake — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Bamberg County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Bamberg 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 Bamberg County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Bamberg County — the short answer
Bamberg County, South Carolina: USDA zone 8b, about 282 days between hard freezes, across 252K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~282
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 252K 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 Bamberg County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bamberg County's 282-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Bamberg County
Across a year, Bamberg County accumulates about 5,525 growing degree days above 50°F, about 377 more than the middle South Carolina county — ahead of 38 of South Carolina’s 46 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 1,045 hours below 45°F, 317 fewer than the South Carolina middle of 1,362. 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 Bamberg County
Across Bamberg County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Barnwell, Coxville, and Bonneau are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.8–5.3, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
20%
Hydric soils
35%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Bamberg County
The USDA soil survey maps 31% of Bamberg County as poorly drained — but another 69% drains differently: 31% well drained, 13% somewhat excessively drained.
Barnwell is the most extensive named soil at 10% of mapped acres, then Coxville (8%) and Bonneau (8%).
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 Bamberg County
Each reading below is measured for Bamberg 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 Bamberg County are poorly drained, in hydrologic group B — 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 Bamberg County runs about pH 4.8–5.3, 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
MeasuredBamberg County runs about 282 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
MeasuredBamberg 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 Bamberg County is in
Bamberg County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain (64%) and Southeastern Plains (36%). 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 Bamberg County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Bamberg County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 282-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 South Carolina profile.
Is it too late to plant in Bamberg County?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 23 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 2 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
What gets applied to farmland in Bamberg County
USGS estimates 28,095 lb of Glyphosate on Bamberg County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acetochlor (22,543 lb) and Dicamba (12,340 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 Bamberg County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Bamberg County — 165 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 10 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Bamberg 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 Bamberg County
Closest first, across Bamberg County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BAM- 79Nitrate · 1.9 mi
- PREISTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- BAMBERG PUBLIC WORKS (0510001)PFAS · 3.1 mi
- SANDERS SUPPLYUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- DENMARK RECAPSUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- LITTLE HOWIESUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- BAMBERG COUNTY PUBLIC WORKSUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- TOBUL ACCUMULATOR INCToxics Release Inventory · 4.2 mi
- NELSONS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.4 mi
- BAMBERG ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
- BAMBERG SCHOOL DISTRICT 1Underground Storage Tanks · 4.8 mi
- H D FREEUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bamberg 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 Bamberg County.
Total Sites
165
across Bamberg County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
10 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Bamberg County
Severity Distribution
across Bamberg County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bamberg County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 110 sites across Bamberg County. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Bamberg 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 Bamberg County average
Your land is one point inside Bamberg County
Everything above resolves to Bamberg County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 252K 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 Bamberg County Average
Bamberg County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Bamberg County
- ●One soil character for all of Bamberg County
- ●Frost dates read at Bamberg County's scale: Feb 23 to Dec 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bamberg County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Bamberg County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bamberg County, South Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bamberg County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bamberg County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bamberg County average
How we know this about Bamberg 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 Bamberg County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Bamberg County
When does frost risk typically end in Bamberg County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bamberg County typically lands around Feb 23, 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 16.
How long is the growing season in Bamberg County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bamberg County sees about 282 frost-free days — roughly Feb 23 through Dec 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 16 to Nov 18, about 247 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bamberg County?
The federal record around Bamberg County shows 165 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (110), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.9 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 Bamberg County's scale — its 8b band and its 282-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bamberg 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 South Carolina's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Bamberg County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Bamberg County's own scale — its own ~282-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 165 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bamberg County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bamberg County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~282-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Bamberg CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 165 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 1.9 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Bamberg County's boundary and the 251,754 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~282-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Bamberg County spans, Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Bamberg County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every South Carolina grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom South Carolina
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Bamberg County — the ~282 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 Bamberg County's 251,754 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 165 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 Bamberg Countyread your own land →