Yavapai County, in Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Growers here do well with cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Yavapai County lies within the Verde Valley — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Yavapai County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Yavapai 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 Yavapai County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Yavapai County — the short answer
Yavapai County, Arizona: USDA zone 7b, about 207 days between hard freezes, across 5.2M acres.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~207
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 5.2M 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 7b is Yavapai County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Yavapai County's 207-day season, see what your own ground reads.
One county, several growing seasons
Yavapai County's hard-freeze record runs about 207 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: Sedona at about 260 days, Cornville at 256 and Village of Oak Creek (Big Park) at 256 (against the county's ~207).
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 ~207-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 in Yavapai County
Across a year, Yavapai County accumulates about 2,741 growing degree days above 50°F, about 2,018 fewer than the middle Arizona county — ahead of 2 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.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Yavapai County
Across Yavapai County, the ground is predominantly Entisols, where Barkerville, Springerville, and Cabezon are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a gravelly loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.2–7.6, slightly alkaline. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Entisols
Drainage
Well drained
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Yavapai County
Barkerville is the most extensive named soil at 13% of mapped acres, then Springerville (10%) and Cabezon (8%).
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 Yavapai County
Each reading below is measured for Yavapai 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 Yavapai 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 Yavapai County runs about pH 7.2–7.6, 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
MeasuredYavapai County runs about 207 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
MeasuredYavapai County sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Yavapai County is in
Yavapai County spans 3 EPA Level III ecoregions — Arizona/New Mexico Mountains (71%), Sonoran Basin and Range (17%) and Arizona/New Mexico Plateau (12%). 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 Yavapai County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Yavapai County's own USDA zone 7b and its own 207-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 Yavapai 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 Mar 17; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 14 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 7 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Yavapai County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Yavapai County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 283 miles off. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly13 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Yavapai County
USGS estimates 2,496 lb of Glyphosate on Yavapai County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (385 lb) and Malathion (306 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 Yavapai County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Yavapai County — 2,396 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 19 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Yavapai 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 Yavapai County
Closest first, across Yavapai County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Copper GossanMining · 2.8 mi
- Indiana MineMining · 3.2 mi
- Blue SulfateMining · 3.5 mi
- Last Chance MineMining · 3.9 mi
- EQUESTRIAN DEVELOPMENT CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- DOCKER (NEW WELL)Nitrate · 4.4 mi
- OLD STAGE STOP COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
- EMMANUEL PINES CAMPUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
- Derby MineMining · 5.0 mi
- Madizelle Mining CoMining · 5.2 mi
- HIGHLAND PINE PROPERTIES INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.2 mi
- CITY OF PRESCOTT - FIRE DEPARTMENT #2Underground Storage Tanks · 6.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Yavapai 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 Yavapai County.
Sources Checked
across Yavapai County
Severity Distribution
across Yavapai County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Yavapai County, two things run higher than the national average across Yavapai County — Mining (952 sites) and Nitrate (868 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 Yavapai 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 Yavapai County average
Your land is one point inside Yavapai County
Everything above resolves to Yavapai County as a whole — a county whose own towns’ 30-year records run 256 days between freezes in Cornville to 260 in Sedona. 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 Yavapai County Average
Yavapai County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Yavapai County
- ●One soil character for all of Yavapai County
- ●Frost dates read at Yavapai County's scale: Apr 14 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Yavapai County's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Yavapai County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Yavapai County, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Yavapai County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Yavapai County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Yavapai County average
How we know this about Yavapai 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 Yavapai County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Yavapai County
When does frost risk typically end in Yavapai County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Yavapai County typically lands around Apr 14, 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 May 5.
How long is the growing season in Yavapai County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Yavapai County sees about 207 frost-free days — roughly Apr 14 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 5 to Oct 24, about 172 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Yavapai County?
The federal record around Yavapai County runs heavier than most — 2,396 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (952), the nearest Mining record about 2.8 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 Yavapai County's scale — its 7b band and its 207-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Yavapai 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 Yavapai County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Yavapai County's own scale — its own ~207-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 2,396 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Yavapai County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Yavapai County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~207-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Yavapai CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 2,396 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Mining record about 2.8 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Yavapai County's boundary and the 5,198,672 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~207-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 3 ecoregions Yavapai County spans, Arizona/New Mexico Mountains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Yavapai County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Yavapai 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 Yavapai County — the ~207 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 Yavapai County's 5,198,672 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 2,396 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 Yavapai Countyread your own land →