Hunter Creek, Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, prickly pear, 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 Hunter 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 Hunter 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 Hunter Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Hunter Creek — the short answer
Hunter Creek, Arizona: USDA zone 7b, about 202 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~202
- 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 7b is Hunter Creek's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Hunter Creek's 202-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Hunter Creek
Each reading below is measured for Hunter Creek itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHunter Creek runs about 202 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
MeasuredHunter Creek 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 Hunter Creek is in
Hunter Creek sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Temperate Sierras. That is read at Hunter Creek's own centroid rather than borrowed from Gila County.
What Grows in Hunter Creek
Every plant below cleared Hunter Creek's own zone 7b and its 202-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arizona profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Hunter 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 Mar 18; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 15 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 3 — 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 Hunter Creek
Survey cells within 31 miles of Hunter Creek checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 363 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Hunter Creek
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Hunter Creek. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CHEVRON - CHRISTOPHER CREEK CHEVRONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- R BAR C SCOUT RANCHUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- ADOT - COLCORD MAINTENANCEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- A-11-13 34CBANitrate · 2.6 mi
- CAMP TONTOZONAUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- A-11-13 36CCDNitrate · 4.5 mi
- A-11-13 36CACNitrate · 4.6 mi
- A-11-12 32BBANitrate · 5.7 mi
- A-11-11H08AAANitrate · 6.8 mi
- AG&F - TONTO CREEK FISH HATCHERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.0 mi
- Hillside Clai3Mining · 7.0 mi
- A-11-11H05DCDNitrate · 7.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Hunter 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 Hunter Creek.
Total Sites
28
within ~10 miles of Hunter Creek
Risk Level
Low
Highest-severity
2 mining sites (prospects, none worked)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Hunter Creek
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Hunter Creek
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Hunter Creek, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 20 sites within ~10 miles of Hunter Creek. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Hunter 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 Hunter Creek average
Your land is one point inside Hunter Creek
Everything above resolves to Hunter 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 Hunter Creek Average
Hunter Creek Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Hunter Creek
- ●One soil character for all of Hunter Creek
- ●Frost dates read at Hunter Creek's scale: Apr 15 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Hunter Creek's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Hunter Creek
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Hunter Creek, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Hunter Creek averages can't show:
We read public map data around Hunter Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hunter Creek average
How we know this about Hunter 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 Hunter 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 Hunter Creek
When does frost risk typically end in Hunter Creek?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Hunter Creek typically lands around Apr 15, 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 6.
When is the first frost in Hunter Creek?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Hunter Creek typically arrives around Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 20, so the watching starts about Oct 4 — about 202 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Hunter Creek?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Hunter Creek sees about 202 frost-free days — roughly Apr 15 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 6 to Oct 20, about 167 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Hunter Creek?
The federal record around Hunter Creek is light — 28 documented sites across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Nitrate entries (20), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 miles out — and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. Growing food here starts from a strong position; a soil test before new food beds settles any site-specific question.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Hunter Creek?
From about Oct 4 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 3 (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 3. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Hunter Creek's scale — its 7b band and its 202-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Hunter 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 Hunter Creek’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Hunter Creek's own scale — its own ~202-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,407 acres it covers and 28 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Hunter Creek's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Hunter Creek's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 15 and Nov 3 and the ~202-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 28 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Hunter Creek, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Hunter Creek's boundary and the 1,407 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~202-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Hunter Creek's own centroid, the Arizona/New Mexico MountainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Hunter 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 Hunter Creek's 1,407 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 Hunter Creek's 1,407 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Hunter 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 1,407 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 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 Hunter Creek-wide figureread your own land →
More in Arizona
Wider growing context
What grows across ArizonaHunter Creek sits outside our named growing regions, so Arizona as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides