Kino Springs, Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Growers here do well with cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Kino Springs, 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 Kino Springs 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 Kino Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Kino Springs — the short answer
Kino Springs, Arizona: USDA zone 8b, about 272 days between hard freezes, across 165 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~272
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 165 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 Kino Springs's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Kino Springs's 272-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Kino Springs
Each reading below is measured for Kino Springs itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredKino Springs runs about 272 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
MeasuredKino Springs 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 Kino Springs is in
Kino Springs sits in the Madrean Archipelago — EPA Level III, inside the wider Southern Semi-arid Highlands. That is read at Kino Springs's own centroid rather than borrowed from Santa Cruz County.
What Grows in Kino Springs
Every plant below cleared Kino Springs's own zone 8b and its 272-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arizona profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Kino Springs?
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 Jan 30; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 27 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 26 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. And with a calendar this mild, the honest answer is that planting barely stops — winter opens seasons colder regions never see.
Documented around Kino Springs
Survey cells within 31 miles of Kino Springs checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 392 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Kino Springs
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Kino Springs. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Bennett MineMining · 2.2 mi
- San JoaquinMining · 2.3 mi
- Big Lead MineMining · 2.3 mi
- Coronado Mines IncMining · 2.4 mi
- Edna GroupMining · 2.4 mi
- Edna Mine GroupMining · 2.4 mi
- SpeculariteMining · 2.5 mi
- Golden Rose MineMining · 2.6 mi
- D-24-15 18AB 1 UNSURVNitrate · 2.7 mi
- Red RacerMining · 2.7 mi
- Gross Copper ProspectMining · 2.7 mi
- Buena Vista MineMining · 2.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Kino Springs'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 Kino Springs.
Total Sites
346
within ~10 miles of Kino Springs
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Kino Springs
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Kino Springs
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Kino Springs, Mining runs higher than the national average — 233 sites within ~10 miles of Kino Springs. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Kino Springs
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 Kino Springs average
Your land is one point inside Kino Springs
Everything above resolves to Kino Springs as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 165 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 Kino Springs Average
Kino Springs Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Kino Springs
- ●One soil character for all of Kino Springs
- ●Frost dates read at Kino Springs's scale: Feb 27 to Nov 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Kino Springs's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Kino Springs
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Kino Springs, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Kino Springs averages can't show:
We read public map data around Kino Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Kino Springs average
How we know this about Kino Springs
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 Kino Springs’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 Kino Springs
When does frost risk typically end in Kino Springs?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Kino Springs typically lands around Feb 27, 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 20.
When is the first frost in Kino Springs?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Kino Springs typically arrives around Nov 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 12, so the watching starts about Oct 27 — about 272 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Kino Springs?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Kino Springs sees about 272 frost-free days — roughly Feb 27 through Nov 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 20 to Nov 12, about 237 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Kino Springs?
The federal record around Kino Springs runs heavier than most — 346 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (233), the nearest Mining record about 2.2 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 Kino Springs?
From about Oct 27 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 26 (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 26. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Kino Springs's scale — its 8b band and its 272-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Kino Springs'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 Kino Springs’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Kino Springs's own scale — its own ~272-day season between 28°F freezes, the 165 acres it covers and 346 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Kino Springs's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Kino Springs's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Feb 27 and Nov 26 and the ~272-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 346 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Kino Springs, the closest Mining record about 2.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Kino Springs's boundary and the 165 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~272-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Kino Springs's own centroid, the Madrean ArchipelagoUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Kino Springs 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 Kino Springs's 165 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Santa Cruz County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Santa Cruz 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 Santa Cruz County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Kino Springs's 165 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Kino Springs you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 165 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Mining record about 2.2 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 Kino Springs-wide figureread your own land →
More in Arizona
Growing region
Nearby growing guides