Freedom Acres, Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Freedom Acres, 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 Freedom Acres 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 Freedom Acres — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Freedom Acres — the short answer
Freedom Acres, Arizona: USDA zone 8a, about 210 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~210
- 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 8a is Freedom Acres's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Freedom Acres's 210-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Your town runs its own season
Freedom Acres's own 30-year record measures about 210 days between 28°F killing freezes — 85 days shorter than Gila County's ~295. Both are measured records, not estimates.
That gap is the whole reason a county average can mislead here. Plant against Freedom Acres's ~210-day season rather than the county figure — and the sun, slope and cold-air drainage on your specific lot move it again.
NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS (1991–2020), 30-year daily minimum record. Both figures are measured records — this town’s own and its county’s. A town with no record of its own is absent here rather than estimated.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Freedom Acres
Each reading below is measured for Freedom Acres itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFreedom Acres runs about 210 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
MeasuredFreedom Acres 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 Freedom Acres is in
Freedom Acres sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Temperate Sierras. That is read at Freedom Acres's own centroid rather than borrowed from Gila County.
What Grows in Freedom Acres
Every plant below cleared Freedom Acres's own zone 8a and its 210-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arizona profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Freedom Acres?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 6 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Freedom Acres
Survey cells within 31 miles of Freedom Acres checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 347 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Freedom Acres
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Freedom Acres. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- A-11-10 11ABDNitrate · 0.6 mi
- Luper ClaimsMining · 1.2 mi
- A-11-10 23AABNitrate · 2.2 mi
- A-11-10 23AAD3Nitrate · 2.4 mi
- A-11-10 23ADCNitrate · 2.6 mi
- A-11H10 24BDC2Nitrate · 3.6 mi
- SPEEDWAY STORE #2890Underground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- HOME DEPOT 0422Brownfields · 3.7 mi
- A-11H10 24BCA3Nitrate · 3.8 mi
- Grand Prize MineMining · 4.3 mi
- GILA COUNTY - PAYSON HIGHWAY MAINTENANCEUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
- PAYSON MARKETPLACEUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Freedom Acres'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 Freedom Acres.
Total Sites
219
within ~10 miles of Freedom Acres
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
4 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Freedom Acres
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Freedom Acres
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Freedom Acres, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Freedom Acres — Nitrate (128 sites) and Mining (25 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Freedom Acres
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 Freedom Acres average
Your land is one point inside Freedom Acres
Everything above resolves to Freedom Acres as a whole — and this is a town whose own 30-year record already runs a season its county’s does not. Your parcel sits at one point inside even that. 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 Freedom Acres Average
Freedom Acres Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Freedom Acres
- ●One soil character for all of Freedom Acres
- ●Frost dates read at Freedom Acres's scale: Apr 10 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Freedom Acres's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Freedom Acres
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Freedom Acres, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Freedom Acres averages can't show:
We read public map data around Freedom Acres — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Freedom Acres average
How we know this about Freedom Acres
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 Freedom Acres’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 Freedom Acres
When does frost risk typically end in Freedom Acres?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Freedom Acres typically lands around Apr 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 May 1.
When is the first frost in Freedom Acres?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Freedom Acres typically arrives around Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 23, so the watching starts about Oct 7 — about 210 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Freedom Acres?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Freedom Acres sees about 210 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Oct 23, about 175 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Freedom Acres?
The federal record around Freedom Acres is a meaningful one — 219 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (128), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.6 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Freedom Acres?
From about Oct 7 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 Nov 6 (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 Nov 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Freedom Acres's scale — its 8a band and its 210-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Freedom Acres'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 Freedom Acres’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Freedom Acres's own scale — its own ~210-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,123 acres it covers and 219 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Freedom Acres's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Freedom Acres's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 10 and Nov 6 and the ~210-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 219 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Freedom Acres, the closest Nitrate record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Freedom Acres's boundary and the 1,123 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~210-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Freedom Acres's own centroid, the Arizona/New Mexico MountainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Freedom Acres 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 Freedom Acres's 1,123 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 Freedom Acres's 1,123 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Freedom Acres you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,123 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.6 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 Freedom Acres-wide figureread your own land →
More in Arizona
Wider growing context
What grows across ArizonaFreedom Acres sits outside our named growing regions, so Arizona as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides