Gila County, in Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Growers here do well with artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Gila County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Gila 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 Gila County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Gila County — the short answer
Gila County, Arizona: USDA zone 9a, about 295 days between hard freezes, across 3.0M acres.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~295
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 3.0M 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 9a is Gila County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Gila County's 295-day season, see what your own ground reads.
One county, several growing seasons
Gila County's hard-freeze record runs about 295 days between freezes — but that is the county-wide average, and several towns inside it carry a markedly different season in their own 30-year record: Mead Ranch at about 204 days, Tonto Village at 204, Beaver Valley at 210, Freedom Acres at 210 and Round Valley at 232, and 1 other town inside the county runs markedly shorter too (against the county's ~295).
Those are measured records, not estimates. If you garden in one of these pockets, plant against your own town's season rather than the county's ~295-day average.
NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS (1991–2020), 30-year daily minimum record. Only held-out towns carrying their own record are named — a town with no record of its own is absent rather than estimated, and a county with nothing qualifying shows no spread at all.
Heat and winter chill in Gila County
Across a year, Gila County accumulates about 5,408 growing degree days above 50°F, about 649 more than the middle Arizona county — ahead of 8 of Arizona’s 15 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 1,362 hours below 45°F, 117 fewer than the Arizona middle of 1,479. 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 Gila County
Across Gila County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Showlow, Chevelon, and Tortugas are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a gravelly clay loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.6–7.8, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Gila County
The USDA soil survey maps 90% of Gila County as well drained — but another 4% drains differently: 3% somewhat excessively drained, 1% excessively drained.
Showlow is the most extensive named soil at 9% of mapped acres, then Chevelon (6%) and Tortugas (4%).
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 Gila County
Each reading below is measured for Gila 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 Gila County are well drained, in hydrologic group D — 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 Gila County runs about pH 6.6–7.8, 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
MeasuredGila County runs about 295 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
MeasuredGila County 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 Gila County is in
Gila County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Arizona/New Mexico Mountains (83%) and Sonoran Basin and Range (16%). 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 Gila County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Gila County's own USDA zone 9a and its own 295-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 Arizona profile.
Is it too late to plant in Gila County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 15; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 12 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 4 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the calendar nearly circles: cool-season crops take the winter shift, and the next window is always close.
Documented around Gila County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Gila County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 369 miles off. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly7 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Gila County
USGS estimates 3,444 lb of Acephate on Gila County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (3,370 lb) and Methomyl (3,118 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 Gila County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Gila County — 847 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 16 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Gila 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 Gila County
Closest first, across Gila County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Sue MineMining · 3.1 mi
- Donna Lee DepositMining · 3.2 mi
- Donna Lee MineMining · 3.2 mi
- 80346Nitrate · 5.0 mi
- Ancient ClaimsMining · 5.5 mi
- Tomato Juice DepositMining · 5.6 mi
- Gold Dike ClaimsMining · 6.0 mi
- Apache Manganese MineMining · 6.7 mi
- Apache ManganeseMining · 7.0 mi
- Horseshoe DepositMining · 7.4 mi
- Fort Apache Indian ReservationMining · 7.9 mi
- Zimmerman-Asbestos Point ClaimsMining · 8.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Gila 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 Gila County.
Sources Checked
across Gila County
Severity Distribution
across Gila County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Gila County, two things run higher than the national average across Gila County — Mining (364 sites) and Superfund (16 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.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Gila 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 Gila County average
Your land is one point inside Gila County
Everything above resolves to Gila County as a whole — a county whose own towns’ 30-year records run 204 days between freezes in Mead Ranch to 232 in Round Valley. Your parcel sits at one point in that range, not in the middle of it. 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 Gila County Average
Gila County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Gila County
- ●One soil character for all of Gila County
- ●Frost dates read at Gila County's scale: Feb 12 to Dec 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Gila County's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Gila County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Gila County, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Gila County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Gila County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Gila County average
How we know this about Gila 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 Gila County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Gila County
When does frost risk typically end in Gila County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Gila County typically lands around Feb 12, 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 5.
How long is the growing season in Gila County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Gila County sees about 295 frost-free days — roughly Feb 12 through Dec 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 5 to Nov 20, about 260 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Gila County?
The federal record around Gila County runs heavier than most — 847 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (364), the nearest Mining record about 3.1 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 Gila County's scale — its 9a band and its 295-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Gila 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 Arizona's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Gila County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Gila County's own scale — its own ~295-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 847 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Gila County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Gila County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~295-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Gila CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 847 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Mining record about 3.1 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Gila County's boundary and the 3,044,847 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~295-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Gila County spans, Arizona/New Mexico Mountains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Gila County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Gila County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Arizona grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Arizona
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Gila County — the ~295 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 Gila County's 3,044,847 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 847 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 Gila Countyread your own land →