Strawberry, Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
On paper, cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Strawberry, 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 Strawberry 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 Strawberry — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Strawberry — the short answer
Strawberry, Arizona: USDA zone 8a, about 214 days between hard freezes, across 7K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~214
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 7K 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 Strawberry's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Strawberry's 214-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Strawberry
Each reading below is measured for Strawberry itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredStrawberry runs about 214 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
MeasuredStrawberry 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 Strawberry is in
Strawberry sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Temperate Sierras. That is read at Strawberry's own centroid rather than borrowed from Gila County.
What Grows in Strawberry
Every plant below cleared Strawberry's own zone 8a and its 214-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arizona profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Strawberry?
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 Mar 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 9 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Strawberry
Survey cells within 31 miles of Strawberry checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 337 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Strawberry
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Strawberry. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- A-12-08 27BBCNitrate · 0.7 mi
- A-12-08 22CCANitrate · 1.1 mi
- A-12-08 21CDDNitrate · 1.1 mi
- E&R WATER COMPANY INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- STRAWBERRY AUTO SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- A-12-08 29AAA2Nitrate · 1.4 mi
- PINE STRAWBERRY DWIDPFAS · 1.5 mi
- PINE STRAWBERRY ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- UNCLE TOM'S KWIK STOP 1029Underground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- US WEST #127736 - STRAWBERRY RADIOUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- A-12-08 25DBD2Nitrate · 2.8 mi
- STRIPES LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Strawberry'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 Strawberry.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Strawberry
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Strawberry
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Strawberry, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Strawberry — Mining (5 sites) and Nitrate (16 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 Strawberry
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 Strawberry average
Your land is one point inside Strawberry
Everything above resolves to Strawberry as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 7K 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 Strawberry Average
Strawberry Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Strawberry
- ●One soil character for all of Strawberry
- ●Frost dates read at Strawberry's scale: Apr 9 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Strawberry's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Strawberry
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Strawberry, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Strawberry averages can't show:
We read public map data around Strawberry — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Strawberry average
How we know this about Strawberry
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 Strawberry’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 Strawberry
When does frost risk typically end in Strawberry?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Strawberry typically lands around Apr 9, 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 30.
When is the first frost in Strawberry?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Strawberry typically arrives around Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 26, so the watching starts about Oct 10 — about 214 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Strawberry?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Strawberry sees about 214 frost-free days — roughly Apr 9 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 30 to Oct 26, about 179 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Strawberry?
The federal record around Strawberry shows 31 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (16), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.7 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Strawberry?
From about Oct 10 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 9 (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 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Strawberry's scale — its 8a band and its 214-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Strawberry'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 Strawberry’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Strawberry's own scale — its own ~214-day season between 28°F freezes, the 7,374 acres it covers and 31 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Strawberry's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Strawberry's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 9 and Nov 9 and the ~214-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 31 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Strawberry, the closest Nitrate record about 0.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Strawberry's boundary and the 7,374 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~214-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Strawberry's own centroid, the Arizona/New Mexico MountainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Strawberry 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 Strawberry's 7,374 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 Strawberry's 7,374 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Strawberry you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 7,374 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.7 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 Strawberry-wide figureread your own land →