Six Shooter Canyon, Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Expect artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Six Shooter Canyon, 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 Six Shooter Canyon 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 Six Shooter Canyon — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Six Shooter Canyon — the short answer
Six Shooter Canyon, Arizona: USDA zone 9a, about 286 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~286
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 Six Shooter Canyon's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Six Shooter Canyon's 286-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Six Shooter Canyon
Each reading below is measured for Six Shooter Canyon itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSix Shooter Canyon runs about 286 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
MeasuredSix Shooter Canyon 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 Six Shooter Canyon is in
Six Shooter Canyon sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Temperate Sierras. That is read at Six Shooter Canyon's own centroid rather than borrowed from Gila County.
What Grows in Six Shooter Canyon
Every plant below cleared Six Shooter Canyon's own zone 9a and its 286-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arizona profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Six Shooter Canyon?
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 19; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 16 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 29 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. In a climate this gentle, “too late” hardly applies — the question becomes which crops prefer the cooler months ahead.
Documented around Six Shooter Canyon
Survey cells within 31 miles of Six Shooter Canyon checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 370 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Six Shooter Canyon
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Six Shooter Canyon. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- GLOBE (KYLE) ASBESTOS MILLSuperfund · 2200 ft
- CITY OF GLOBE - MAINTENANCE YARDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- UPS GLOBEBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- GLOBE PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- R-DELSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- CIRCLE K #2700423Underground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- FAMILY DOLLAR #5102Brownfields · 1.7 mi
- PINAL LUMBER INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- BAIT SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- GILA COUNTY - SHERIFFS DEPARTMENT - GLOBEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- APSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- SPEEDWAY STORE #2979Underground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Six Shooter Canyon'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 Six Shooter Canyon.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Six Shooter Canyon
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Six Shooter Canyon
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Six Shooter Canyon, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Six Shooter Canyon — Mining (151 sites) and Superfund (9 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.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Six Shooter Canyon
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 Six Shooter Canyon average
Your land is one point inside Six Shooter Canyon
Everything above resolves to Six Shooter Canyon as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Six Shooter Canyon Average
Six Shooter Canyon Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Six Shooter Canyon
- ●One soil character for all of Six Shooter Canyon
- ●Frost dates read at Six Shooter Canyon's scale: Feb 16 to Nov 29
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Six Shooter Canyon's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Six Shooter Canyon
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Six Shooter Canyon, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Six Shooter Canyon averages can't show:
We read public map data around Six Shooter Canyon — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Six Shooter Canyon average
How we know this about Six Shooter Canyon
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 Six Shooter Canyon’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 Six Shooter Canyon
When does frost risk typically end in Six Shooter Canyon?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Six Shooter Canyon typically lands around Feb 16, 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 9.
When is the first frost in Six Shooter Canyon?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Six Shooter Canyon typically arrives around Nov 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 15, so the watching starts about Oct 30 — about 286 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Six Shooter Canyon?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Six Shooter Canyon sees about 286 frost-free days — roughly Feb 16 through Nov 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 9 to Nov 15, about 251 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Six Shooter Canyon?
The federal record around Six Shooter Canyon runs heavier than most — 273 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (151), the nearest Superfund record about 0.4 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 Six Shooter Canyon?
From about Oct 30 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 29 (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 29. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Six Shooter Canyon's scale — its 9a band and its 286-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Six Shooter Canyon'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 Six Shooter Canyon’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Six Shooter Canyon's own scale — its own ~286-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,894 acres it covers and 273 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Six Shooter Canyon's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Six Shooter Canyon's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Feb 16 and Nov 29 and the ~286-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 273 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Six Shooter Canyon, the closest Superfund record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Six Shooter Canyon's boundary and the 1,894 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~286-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Six Shooter Canyon's own centroid, the Arizona/New Mexico MountainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Six Shooter Canyon 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 Six Shooter Canyon's 1,894 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 Six Shooter Canyon's 1,894 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Six Shooter Canyon you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,894 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Superfund record about 0.4 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 Six Shooter Canyon-wide figureread your own land →
More in Arizona
Wider growing context
What grows across ArizonaSix Shooter Canyon sits outside our named growing regions, so Arizona as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides