Jerome, Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Reliable performers under these conditions include artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Jerome, 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 Jerome 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 Jerome — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Jerome — the short answer
Jerome, Arizona: USDA zone 9a, about 248 days between hard freezes, across 503 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~248
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 503 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 9a is Jerome's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Jerome's 248-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Jerome
Each reading below is measured for Jerome itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredJerome runs about 248 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
MeasuredJerome sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a.
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 Jerome is in
Jerome sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Temperate Sierras. That is read at Jerome's own centroid rather than borrowed from Yavapai County.
What Grows in Jerome
Every plant below cleared Jerome's own zone 9a and its 248-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arizona profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Jerome?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 19; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 19 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 22 — 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 Jerome
Survey cells within 31 miles of Jerome checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 311 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Jerome
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Jerome. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FORMER MOHAWK MINI-MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 400 ft
- Jerome Verde MineMining · 1700 ft
- Florentia MineMining · 2000 ft
- TOWN OF JEROME - TOWN YARDUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- Jerome Verde GroupMining · 2100 ft
- Calumet and JeromeMining · 2300 ft
- Calumet-Jerome ProspectMining · 2400 ft
- Dundee-ArizonaMining · 2400 ft
- Dundee - Arizona MineMining · 2400 ft
- ARIZONA STATE PARKS - JEROME STATE HISTORIC PARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- United Verde Extension MineMining · 0.5 mi
- Edith and Audrey ShaftsMining · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Jerome'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 Jerome.
Total Sites
268
within ~10 miles of Jerome
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Jerome
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Jerome
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Jerome, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Jerome — Mining (94 sites) and PFAS (3 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Jerome
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 Jerome average
Your land is one point inside Jerome
Everything above resolves to Jerome as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 503 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 Jerome Average
Jerome Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Jerome
- ●One soil character for all of Jerome
- ●Frost dates read at Jerome's scale: Mar 19 to Nov 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Jerome's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Jerome
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Jerome, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Jerome averages can't show:
We read public map data around Jerome — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Jerome average
How we know this about Jerome
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 Jerome’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 Jerome
When does frost risk typically end in Jerome?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Jerome typically lands around Mar 19, 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 9.
When is the first frost in Jerome?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Jerome typically arrives around Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 8, so the watching starts about Oct 23 — about 248 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Jerome?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Jerome sees about 248 frost-free days — roughly Mar 19 through Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 9 to Nov 8, about 213 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Jerome?
The federal record around Jerome runs heavier than most — 268 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (94), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Jerome?
From about Oct 23 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 22 (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 22. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Jerome's scale — its 9a band and its 248-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Jerome'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 Jerome’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Jerome's own scale — its own ~248-day season between 28°F freezes, the 503 acres it covers and 268 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Jerome's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Jerome's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 19 and Nov 22 and the ~248-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 268 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Jerome, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Jerome's boundary and the 503 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~248-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Jerome's own centroid, the Arizona/New Mexico MountainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Jerome 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 Jerome's 503 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Yavapai County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Yavapai 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 Yavapai County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Jerome's 503 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Jerome you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 503 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Jerome-wide figureread your own land →
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