Graham County, in Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
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.
Graham County lies within the Willcox AVA — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Graham County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Graham 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 Graham County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Graham County — the short answer
Graham County, Arizona: USDA zone 8b, about 266 days between hard freezes, across 3.0M acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~266
- 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 8b is Graham County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Graham County's 266-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Graham County
Across a year, Graham County accumulates about 5,815 growing degree days above 50°F, about 1,056 more than the middle Arizona county — ahead of 9 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 1,468 hours below 45°F, 11 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 Graham County
Across Graham County, the ground is predominantly Aridisols, where Tubac, Tres Hermanos, and Beaumain are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a gravelly sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.7–7.9, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Aridisols
Drainage
Well drained
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Graham County
The USDA soil survey maps 92% of Graham County as well drained — but another 6% drains differently: 2% excessively drained, 2% somewhat excessively drained.
Tubac is the most extensive named soil at 4% of mapped acres, then Tres Hermanos (4%) and Beaumain (3%).
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 Graham County
Each reading below is measured for Graham 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 Graham 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 Graham County runs about pH 6.7–7.9, on the alkaline side.
Many vegetables cope, but acid-lovers like blueberries struggle, and iron and manganese lock up above about pH 7.5 — leaves yellow between the veins even in rich soil.
Elemental sulfur and generous organic matter lower pH slowly for the beds that need it; test first so you add only what the soil actually calls for.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredGraham County runs about 266 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
MeasuredGraham 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 Graham County is in
Graham County spans 4 EPA Level III ecoregions — Madrean Archipelago (63%), Chihuahuan Deserts (14%), Arizona/New Mexico Mountains (13%) and Sonoran Basin and Range (10%). 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 Graham County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Graham County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 266-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 Graham County?
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 29; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 19 — 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 Graham County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Graham County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 423 miles off. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly2 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Graham County
USGS estimates 51,445 lb of Glyphosate on Graham County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor-s (11,786 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (11,786 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 Graham County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Graham County — 503 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Graham 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 Graham County
Closest first, across Graham County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- D-06-24 04DCNitrate · 0.9 mi
- D-06-24 04CCNitrate · 1.4 mi
- D-06-24 02ADCNitrate · 1.4 mi
- D-06-24 14ABNitrate · 1.6 mi
- D-05-24 33CA 1Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- D-06-24 05AACNitrate · 1.9 mi
- D-05-24 33BC 2Nitrate · 2.0 mi
- D-05-24 33BC 1Nitrate · 2.0 mi
- D-05-24 33BANitrate · 2.1 mi
- D-05-24 32AANitrate · 2.3 mi
- D-06-24 13ABD1Nitrate · 2.5 mi
- D-05-24 31DDCNitrate · 2.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Graham 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 Graham County.
Sources Checked
across Graham County
Severity Distribution
across Graham County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Graham County, two things run higher than the national average across Graham County — Mining (224 sites) and Nitrate (158 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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 Graham 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 Graham County average
Your land is one point inside Graham County
Everything above resolves to Graham County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 3.0M 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 Graham County Average
Graham County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Graham County
- ●One soil character for all of Graham County
- ●Frost dates read at Graham County's scale: Feb 26 to Nov 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Graham County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Graham County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Graham County, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Graham County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Graham County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Graham County average
How we know this about Graham 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 Graham County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Graham County
When does frost risk typically end in Graham County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Graham County typically lands around Feb 26, 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 19.
How long is the growing season in Graham County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Graham County sees about 266 frost-free days — roughly Feb 26 through Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 19 to Nov 5, about 231 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Graham County?
The federal record around Graham County runs heavier than most — 503 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (224), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.9 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 Graham County's scale — its 8b band and its 266-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Graham 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 Graham County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Graham County's own scale — its own ~266-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 503 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Graham County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Graham County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~266-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Graham CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 503 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 0.9 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Graham County's boundary and the 2,957,999 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~266-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 4 ecoregions Graham County spans, Madrean Archipelago the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Graham County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Graham 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 Graham County — the ~266 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 Graham County's 2,957,999 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 503 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 Graham Countyread your own land →