Summerhaven, Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
The conditions favor cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Summerhaven, 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 Summerhaven 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 Summerhaven — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Summerhaven — the short answer
Summerhaven, Arizona: USDA zone 7b, about 224 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~224
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 7b is Summerhaven's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Summerhaven's 224-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Summerhaven
Each reading below is measured for Summerhaven itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSummerhaven runs about 224 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
MeasuredSummerhaven sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Summerhaven is in
Summerhaven sits in the Madrean Archipelago — EPA Level III, inside the wider Southern Semi-arid Highlands. That is read at Summerhaven's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Pima County is mostly Sonoran Basin and Range. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Summerhaven
Every plant below cleared Summerhaven's own zone 7b and its 224-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arizona profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Summerhaven?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 7 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 17 — 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 Summerhaven
Survey cells within 31 miles of Summerhaven checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 375 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Summerhaven
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Summerhaven. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Unnamed Prospect Ml70Mining · 2200 ft
- Catalina GroupMining · 0.5 mi
- Unnamed Prospect Ml67Mining · 0.6 mi
- PIMA COUNTY - WWMD - MOUNT LEMMON WWTPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- MOUNT LEMMON FIRE DISTRICTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- Unnamed Prospect Ml79Mining · 1.6 mi
- UnknownMining · 1.7 mi
- Unnamed Prospect Ml107Mining · 1.9 mi
- Stratton MineMining · 2.4 mi
- Copper MountainMining · 2.5 mi
- Unnamed Prospect Ml85Mining · 2.6 mi
- Leatherwood Mine GroupMining · 2.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Summerhaven'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 Summerhaven.
Total Sites
117
within ~10 miles of Summerhaven
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Summerhaven
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Summerhaven
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Summerhaven, Mining runs higher than the national average — 77 sites within ~10 miles of Summerhaven. 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.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Summerhaven
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 Summerhaven average
Your land is one point inside Summerhaven
Everything above resolves to Summerhaven as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Summerhaven Average
Summerhaven Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Summerhaven
- ●One soil character for all of Summerhaven
- ●Frost dates read at Summerhaven's scale: Apr 7 to Nov 17
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Summerhaven's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Summerhaven
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Summerhaven, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Summerhaven averages can't show:
We read public map data around Summerhaven — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Summerhaven average
How we know this about Summerhaven
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 Summerhaven’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 Summerhaven
When does frost risk typically end in Summerhaven?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Summerhaven typically lands around Apr 7, 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 28.
When is the first frost in Summerhaven?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Summerhaven typically arrives around Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 3, so the watching starts about Oct 18 — about 224 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Summerhaven?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Summerhaven sees about 224 frost-free days — roughly Apr 7 through Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 28 to Nov 3, about 189 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Summerhaven?
The federal record around Summerhaven runs heavier than most — 117 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (77), the nearest Mining 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 Summerhaven?
From about Oct 18 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 17 (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 17. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Summerhaven's scale — its 7b band and its 224-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Summerhaven'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 Summerhaven’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Summerhaven's own scale — its own ~224-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,947 acres it covers and 117 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Summerhaven's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Summerhaven's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 7 and Nov 17 and the ~224-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 117 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Summerhaven, the closest Mining record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Summerhaven's boundary and the 2,947 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~224-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Summerhaven sits in the Madrean Archipelago — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Summerhaven 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 Summerhaven's 2,947 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Pima County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Pima 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 Pima County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Summerhaven's 2,947 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Summerhaven you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,947 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Mining 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 Summerhaven-wide figureread your own land →