Peeples Valley, Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
The conditions favor cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Peeples Valley, 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 Peeples Valley 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 Peeples Valley — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Peeples Valley — the short answer
Peeples Valley, Arizona: USDA zone 8b, about 283 days between hard freezes, across 10K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~283
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 10K 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 Peeples Valley's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Peeples Valley's 283-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Peeples Valley
Each reading below is measured for Peeples Valley itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPeeples Valley runs about 283 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
MeasuredPeeples Valley 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 Peeples Valley is in
Peeples Valley sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Temperate Sierras. That is read at Peeples Valley's own centroid rather than borrowed from Yavapai County.
What Grows in Peeples Valley
Every plant below cleared Peeples Valley's own zone 8b and its 283-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arizona profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Peeples Valley?
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 29; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 6 — 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 Peeples Valley
Survey cells within 31 miles of Peeples Valley checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 265 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Peeples Valley
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Peeples Valley. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MonicaMining · 1.4 mi
- B-11-05 24CACNitrate · 1.8 mi
- Cuba MineMining · 1.9 mi
- CubaMining · 1.9 mi
- 89ER TRUCK STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- B-11-04 18CCCNitrate · 2.5 mi
- BuckhornMining · 2.7 mi
- ADOT - PEEPLES MAINTENANCEUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
- B-11-04 07CDBNitrate · 3.3 mi
- Charlie Brown ClaimsMining · 3.4 mi
- UNIVERSAL DRILLING & SUPPLY COUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- BROADWAY SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Peeples Valley'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 Peeples Valley.
Total Sites
107
within ~10 miles of Peeples Valley
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Peeples Valley
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Peeples Valley
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Peeples Valley, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Peeples Valley — Mining (62 sites) and Nitrate (30 sites). 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.
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 Peeples Valley
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 Peeples Valley average
Your land is one point inside Peeples Valley
Everything above resolves to Peeples Valley as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 10K 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 Peeples Valley Average
Peeples Valley Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Peeples Valley
- ●One soil character for all of Peeples Valley
- ●Frost dates read at Peeples Valley's scale: Feb 26 to Dec 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Peeples Valley's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Peeples Valley
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Peeples Valley, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Peeples Valley averages can't show:
We read public map data around Peeples Valley — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Peeples Valley average
How we know this about Peeples Valley
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 Peeples Valley’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 Peeples Valley
When does frost risk typically end in Peeples Valley?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Peeples Valley typically lands around Feb 26, 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 19.
When is the first frost in Peeples Valley?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Peeples Valley typically arrives around Dec 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 22, so the watching starts about Nov 6 — about 283 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Peeples Valley?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Peeples Valley sees about 283 frost-free days — roughly Feb 26 through Dec 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 19 to Nov 22, about 248 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Peeples Valley?
The federal record around Peeples Valley runs heavier than most — 107 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (62), the nearest Mining record about 1.4 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 Peeples Valley?
From about Nov 6 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 Dec 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 Dec 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Peeples Valley's scale — its 8b band and its 283-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Peeples Valley'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 Peeples Valley’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Peeples Valley's own scale — its own ~283-day season between 28°F freezes, the 9,690 acres it covers and 107 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Peeples Valley's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Peeples Valley's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Feb 26 and Dec 6 and the ~283-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 107 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Peeples Valley, the closest Mining record about 1.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Peeples Valley's boundary and the 9,690 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~283-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Peeples Valley's own centroid, the Arizona/New Mexico MountainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Peeples Valley 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 Peeples Valley's 9,690 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 Peeples Valley's 9,690 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Peeples Valley you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 9,690 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Mining record about 1.4 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 Peeples Valley-wide figureread your own land →
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