Amado, Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Well-matched crops include artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Amado, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Amado lot. 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 Amado — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Amado — the short answer
Amado, Arizona: USDA zone 9a, about 290 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~290
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 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 9a is Amado's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Amado's 290-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Amado
Each reading below is measured for Amado itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredAmado runs about 290 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
MeasuredAmado sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a.
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 Amado is in
Amado sits in the Sonoran Basin and Range — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Amado's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Santa Cruz County is mostly Madrean Archipelago. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Amado
Every plant below cleared Amado's own zone 9a and its 290-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arizona profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Amado?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 19; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 16 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 3 — 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.
Documented around Amado
Survey cells within 31 miles of Amado checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 371 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Amado
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Amado. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MOUNTAIN VIEW RV RANCHUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- LUNA SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- AMADO MINI MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- SOPORI ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- D-19-12 36CBBNitrate · 2.6 mi
- D-19-13 29CBANitrate · 3.5 mi
- D-19-13 29CBB2Nitrate · 3.5 mi
- D-20-13 32BCCNitrate · 3.7 mi
- RANCHO EL SOPORIUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.9 mi
- D-18-13 34ABCNitrate · 4.5 mi
- D-21-13 07ABBNitrate · 5.2 mi
- TUBAC MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Amado'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 Amado.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Amado
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Amado
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Amado, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Amado — Mining (47 sites) and Nitrate (32 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Amado
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 Amado average
Your land is one point inside Amado
Everything above resolves to Amado as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 town 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 local average.
Your Lot vs the Amado Average
Amado Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Amado
- ●One soil character for all of Amado
- ●Frost dates read at Amado's scale: Feb 16 to Dec 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Amado's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Amado
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Amado, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Amado averages can't show:
We read public map data around Amado — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Amado average
How we know this about Amado
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Amado’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Amado
When does frost risk typically end in Amado?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Amado typically lands around Feb 16, 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 9.
When is the first frost in Amado?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Amado typically arrives around Dec 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 19, so the watching starts about Nov 3 — about 290 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Amado?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Amado sees about 290 frost-free days — roughly Feb 16 through Dec 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 9 to Nov 19, about 255 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Amado?
The federal record around Amado runs heavier than most — 98 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (47), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Amado?
From about Nov 3 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Dec 3 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Dec 3. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Amado's scale — its 9a band and its 290-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Amado's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Amado’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Amado's own scale — its own ~290-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,325 acres it covers and 98 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Amado's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Amado's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Feb 16 and Dec 3 and the ~290-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 98 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Amado, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Amado's boundary and the 3,325 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~290-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Amado sits in the Sonoran Basin and Range — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Amado checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Amado's 3,325 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Santa Cruz County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Santa Cruz County
- The growing challenges every Arizona grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Arizona
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Santa Cruz County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Amado's 3,325 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Amado you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,325 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Amado-wide figureread your own land →
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