Oxbow Estates, Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Expect cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Oxbow Estates, 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 Oxbow Estates 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 Oxbow Estates — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Oxbow Estates — the short answer
Oxbow Estates, Arizona: USDA zone 8a, about 242 days between hard freezes, across 316 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~242
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 316 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 Oxbow Estates's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Oxbow Estates's 242-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Oxbow Estates
Each reading below is measured for Oxbow Estates itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredOxbow Estates runs about 242 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
MeasuredOxbow Estates 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 Oxbow Estates is in
Oxbow Estates sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Temperate Sierras. That is read at Oxbow Estates's own centroid rather than borrowed from Gila County.
What Grows in Oxbow Estates
Every plant below cleared Oxbow Estates's own zone 8a and its 242-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arizona profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Oxbow Estates?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 21 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 18 — 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 Oxbow Estates
Survey cells within 31 miles of Oxbow Estates checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 343 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Oxbow Estates
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Oxbow Estates. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- LANNY FLOYD TRUCKING INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- A-10-10 28BCA2Nitrate · 1600 ft
- A-10-10 29ACA2Nitrate · 2000 ft
- Gold DikeMining · 0.9 mi
- SHUMWAY MILLSITESSuperfund · 0.9 mi
- Ox Bow MineMining · 1.0 mi
- Oxbow MineMining · 1.0 mi
- Iron CampMining · 1.5 mi
- Blue GooseMining · 1.6 mi
- A-10-10 22DBD1Nitrate · 1.8 mi
- Pat Walsh GroupMining · 1.9 mi
- Rocky Ford PropertyMining · 2.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Oxbow Estates'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 Oxbow Estates.
Total Sites
218
within ~10 miles of Oxbow Estates
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
4 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Oxbow Estates
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Oxbow Estates
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Oxbow Estates, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Oxbow Estates — Mining (47 sites) and Nitrate (108 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 Oxbow Estates
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 Oxbow Estates average
Your land is one point inside Oxbow Estates
Everything above resolves to Oxbow Estates as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 316 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 Oxbow Estates Average
Oxbow Estates Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Oxbow Estates
- ●One soil character for all of Oxbow Estates
- ●Frost dates read at Oxbow Estates's scale: Mar 21 to Nov 18
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Oxbow Estates's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Oxbow Estates
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Oxbow Estates, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Oxbow Estates averages can't show:
We read public map data around Oxbow Estates — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Oxbow Estates average
How we know this about Oxbow Estates
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 Oxbow Estates’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 Oxbow Estates
When does frost risk typically end in Oxbow Estates?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Oxbow Estates typically lands around Mar 21, 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 11.
When is the first frost in Oxbow Estates?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Oxbow Estates typically arrives around Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 4, so the watching starts about Oct 19 — about 242 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Oxbow Estates?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Oxbow Estates sees about 242 frost-free days — roughly Mar 21 through Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 11 to Nov 4, about 207 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Oxbow Estates?
The federal record around Oxbow Estates is a meaningful one — 218 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (108), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Oxbow Estates?
From about Oct 19 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 18 (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 18. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Oxbow Estates's scale — its 8a band and its 242-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Oxbow Estates'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 Oxbow Estates’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Oxbow Estates's own scale — its own ~242-day season between 28°F freezes, the 316 acres it covers and 218 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Oxbow Estates's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Oxbow Estates's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 21 and Nov 18 and the ~242-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 218 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Oxbow Estates, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Oxbow Estates's boundary and the 316 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~242-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Oxbow Estates's own centroid, the Arizona/New Mexico MountainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Oxbow Estates 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 Oxbow Estates's 316 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 Oxbow Estates's 316 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Oxbow Estates you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 316 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Oxbow Estates-wide figureread your own land →
More in Arizona
Wider growing context
What grows across ArizonaOxbow Estates sits outside our named growing regions, so Arizona as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides