Mohave County, in Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Mohave County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Mohave 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 Mohave County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Mohave County — the short answer
Mohave County, Arizona: USDA zone 8a, about 242 days between hard freezes, across 8.5M acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~242
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 8.5M 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 8a is Mohave County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Mohave County's 242-day season, see what your own ground reads.
One county, several growing seasons
Mohave County's hard-freeze record runs about 242 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: Kaibab at about 201 days and Moccasin at 201 (against the county's ~242).
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 ~242-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 Mohave County
Across a year, Mohave County accumulates about 3,945 growing degree days above 50°F, about 814 fewer than the middle Arizona county — ahead of 4 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 2,087 hours below 45°F, 608 more 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 Mohave County
Across Mohave County, the ground is predominantly Aridisols, where Mellenthin, Huevi, and Cellar are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a very gravelly loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.8–8.0, moderately alkaline. 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 Mohave County
The USDA soil survey maps 63% of Mohave County as well drained — but another 26% drains differently: 22% somewhat excessively drained, 5% excessively drained.
Mellenthin is the most extensive named soil at 4% of mapped acres, then Huevi (2%) and Cellar (2%).
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 Mohave County
Each reading below is measured for Mohave 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 Mohave 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 Mohave County runs about pH 7.8–8.0, 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
MeasuredMohave County runs about 242 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredMohave County sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
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 Mohave County is in
Mohave County spans 5 EPA Level III ecoregions — Mojave Basin and Range (43%), Arizona/New Mexico Plateau (25%), Sonoran Basin and Range (14%), Colorado Plateaus (10%) and Arizona/New Mexico Mountains (8%). 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 Mohave County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Mohave County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 242-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 Mohave County?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 21 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 18 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Mohave County
- monarch butterfly4 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Mohave County
USGS estimates 7,641 lb of Glyphosate on Mohave County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Malathion (2,990 lb) and Dimethoate (1,009 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 Mohave County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Mohave County — 1,592 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 8 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Mohave 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 Mohave County
Closest first, across Mohave County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Westwater WellNitrate · 7.2 mi
- Music Mountain Group MineMining · 10.5 mi
- Portland-Mizpah MineMining · 10.9 mi
- B-29-15 25BCC1 [HUALAPAI TEST WELL]Nitrate · 12.2 mi
- B-28-16 34BDBNitrate · 13.8 mi
- B-24-15 01BACNitrate · 15.8 mi
- Dewey Mahone SpringNitrate · 16.1 mi
- White CapMining · 18.4 mi
- B-24-16 01DDD1Nitrate · 18.6 mi
- B-24-16 01DDD2Nitrate · 18.6 mi
- FRONTIER LOUNGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 19.1 mi
- TRUXTON CHEVRON - FORMERUnderground Storage Tanks · 19.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Mohave 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 Mohave County.
Total Sites
1,592
across Mohave County
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
8 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Mohave County
Severity Distribution
across Mohave County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Mohave County, two things run higher than the national average across Mohave County — Mining (522 sites) and Nitrate (456 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 Mohave 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 Mohave County average
Your land is one point inside Mohave County
Everything above resolves to Mohave County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 8.5M 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 Mohave County Average
Mohave County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Mohave County
- ●One soil character for all of Mohave County
- ●Frost dates read at Mohave County's scale: Mar 21 to Nov 18
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Mohave County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Mohave County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Mohave County, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Mohave County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Mohave County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mohave County average
How we know this about Mohave 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 Mohave County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Mohave County
When does frost risk typically end in Mohave County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Mohave County typically lands around Mar 21, 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 Apr 11.
How long is the growing season in Mohave County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Mohave County sees about 242 frost-free days — roughly Mar 21 through Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 11 to Nov 4, about 207 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Mohave County?
The federal record around Mohave County runs heavier than most — 1,592 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (522), the nearest Nitrate record about 7.2 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 Mohave County's scale — its 8a band and its 242-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Mohave 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 Mohave County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Mohave County's own scale — its own ~242-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 1,592 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Mohave County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Mohave County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~242-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Mohave CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 1,592 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 7.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Mohave County's boundary and the 8,532,549 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~242-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 5 ecoregions Mohave County spans, Mojave Basin and Range the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Mohave County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Mohave 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 Mohave County — the ~242 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 Mohave County's 8,532,549 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 1,592 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 Mohave Countyread your own land →