Deer Creek, Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — 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.
Even in Deer Creek, 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 Deer Creek 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 Deer Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Deer Creek — the short answer
Deer Creek, Arizona: USDA zone 8b, about 298 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~298
- 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 Deer Creek's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Deer Creek's 298-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Deer Creek
Each reading below is measured for Deer Creek itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDeer Creek runs about 298 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
MeasuredDeer Creek 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 Deer Creek is in
Deer Creek sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Temperate Sierras. That is read at Deer Creek's own centroid rather than borrowed from Gila County.
What Grows in Deer Creek
Every plant below cleared Deer Creek's own zone 8b and its 298-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arizona profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Deer Creek?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 5 — 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 Deer Creek
Survey cells within 31 miles of Deer Creek checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 341 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Deer Creek
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Deer Creek. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- A-08-10 05CDCNitrate · 0.8 mi
- PeacockMining · 1.3 mi
- Basic Minerals PropertyMining · 1.8 mi
- A-09-10 20CDCNitrate · 2.3 mi
- ADOT - RYEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- RYE BAR AND STEAKHOUSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- A-09-10 25CCDNitrate · 3.9 mi
- Casterson PropertyMining · 4.0 mi
- A-08-10 27ACB3Nitrate · 4.4 mi
- JAKE'S CORNER STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
- A-09-10 24DCCNitrate · 4.6 mi
- Tetonic Mining Co PropertyMining · 5.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Deer Creek'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 Deer Creek.
Total Sites
77
within ~10 miles of Deer Creek
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Deer Creek
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Deer Creek
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Deer Creek, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Deer Creek — Mining (52 sites) and Nitrate (20 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 Deer Creek
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 Deer Creek average
Your land is one point inside Deer Creek
Everything above resolves to Deer Creek 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 Deer Creek Average
Deer Creek Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Deer Creek
- ●One soil character for all of Deer Creek
- ●Frost dates read at Deer Creek's scale: Feb 10 to Dec 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Deer Creek's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Deer Creek
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Deer Creek, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Deer Creek averages can't show:
We read public map data around Deer Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Deer Creek average
How we know this about Deer Creek
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 Deer Creek’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 Deer Creek
When does frost risk typically end in Deer Creek?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Deer Creek typically lands around Feb 10, 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 3.
When is the first frost in Deer Creek?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Deer Creek typically arrives around Dec 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 21, so the watching starts about Nov 5 — about 298 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Deer Creek?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Deer Creek sees about 298 frost-free days — roughly Feb 10 through Dec 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 3 to Nov 21, about 263 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Deer Creek?
The federal record around Deer Creek runs heavier than most — 77 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (52), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.8 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Deer Creek?
From about Nov 5 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 Dec 5 (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 Dec 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Deer Creek's scale — its 8b band and its 298-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Deer Creek'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 Deer Creek’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Deer Creek's own scale — its own ~298-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,171 acres it covers and 77 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Deer Creek's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Deer Creek's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Feb 10 and Dec 5 and the ~298-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 77 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Deer Creek, the closest Nitrate record about 0.8 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Deer Creek's boundary and the 1,171 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~298-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Deer Creek's own centroid, the Arizona/New Mexico MountainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Deer Creek 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 Deer Creek's 1,171 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Gila County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Gila 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 Gila County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Deer Creek's 1,171 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Deer Creek you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,171 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.8 miles 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 Deer Creek-wide figureread your own land →
More in Arizona
Wider growing context
What grows across ArizonaDeer Creek sits outside our named growing regions, so Arizona as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides