Bowie, Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Bowie, 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 Bowie 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 Bowie — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Bowie — the short answer
Bowie, Arizona: USDA zone 8b, about 269 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~269
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 8b is Bowie's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bowie's 269-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Bowie
Each reading below is measured for Bowie itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBowie 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
MeasuredBowie 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 Bowie is in
Bowie sits in the Madrean Archipelago — EPA Level III, inside the wider Southern Semi-arid Highlands. That is read at Bowie's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cochise County.
What Grows in Bowie
Every plant below cleared Bowie's own zone 8b and its 269-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arizona profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Bowie?
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 Bowie
Survey cells within 31 miles of Bowie checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 451 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Bowie
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Bowie. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ARNOLDS SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- BOB'S AUTOMOTIVEUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- D-13-28 04DDBNitrate · 1200 ft
- BOWIE DEPOTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- D V WELKERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- ADOT - BOWIE MAINTENANCE CAMPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- CONCHO PETROLEUM INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- GLENN ROYSTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- D-13-28 09BCCNitrate · 1.1 mi
- MOUNTAIN VIEW RV PARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- PJ'S FAMILY TRAVEL CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- DIXIES TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bowie'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 Bowie.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Bowie
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Bowie
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bowie, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Bowie — Mining (17 sites) and Nitrate (16 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
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 Bowie
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 Bowie average
Your land is one point inside Bowie
Everything above resolves to Bowie as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Bowie Average
Bowie Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Bowie
- ●One soil character for all of Bowie
- ●Frost dates read at Bowie's scale: Feb 28 to Nov 24
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bowie's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Bowie
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bowie, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bowie averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bowie — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bowie average
How we know this about Bowie
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 Bowie’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 Bowie
When does frost risk typically end in Bowie?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bowie 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.
When is the first frost in Bowie?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Bowie typically arrives around Nov 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 10, so the watching starts about Oct 25 — about 269 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Bowie?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bowie 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 Bowie?
The federal record around Bowie runs heavier than most — 45 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (17), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Bowie?
From about Oct 25 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 Nov 24 (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 Nov 24. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Bowie's scale — its 8b band and its 269-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bowie'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 Bowie’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Bowie's own scale — its own ~269-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,092 acres it covers and 45 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bowie's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bowie's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Feb 28 and Nov 24 and the ~269-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 45 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Bowie, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Bowie's boundary and the 1,092 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~269-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Bowie's own centroid, the Madrean ArchipelagoUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Bowie 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 Bowie's 1,092 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cochise County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cochise 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 Cochise County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bowie's 1,092 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Bowie you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,092 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Bowie-wide figureread your own land →