Sunsites, 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.
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 Sunsites, 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 Sunsites 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 Sunsites — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Sunsites — the short answer
Sunsites, Arizona: USDA zone 8a, about 247 days between hard freezes, across 570 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~247
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 570 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 Sunsites's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Sunsites's 247-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Sunsites
Each reading below is measured for Sunsites itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSunsites runs about 247 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
MeasuredSunsites 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 Sunsites is in
Sunsites sits in the Madrean Archipelago — EPA Level III, inside the wider Southern Semi-arid Highlands. That is read at Sunsites's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cochise County.
What Grows in Sunsites
Every plant below cleared Sunsites's own zone 8a and its 247-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arizona profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Sunsites?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 15 — 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 Sunsites
Survey cells within 31 miles of Sunsites checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 435 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Sunsites
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Sunsites. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- D-17-25 19DCCNitrate · 0.5 mi
- GIANT #6669Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- TUMBLEWEED CORNERUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- FAMILY DOLLAR #6675Brownfields · 0.7 mi
- APACHE HARDWAREUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- D-17-25 09CCC1Nitrate · 2.2 mi
- PEARCE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- Commonwealth MineMining · 3.2 mi
- D-18-25 05ACCNitrate · 3.2 mi
- Commonwealth Extension MineMining · 3.3 mi
- Fluorine Hill MineMining · 3.4 mi
- Copper-GoldMining · 3.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Sunsites'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 Sunsites.
Total Sites
123
within ~10 miles of Sunsites
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Sunsites
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Sunsites
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Sunsites, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Sunsites — Mining (64 sites) and Nitrate (46 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 Sunsites
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 Sunsites average
Your land is one point inside Sunsites
Everything above resolves to Sunsites as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 570 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 Sunsites Average
Sunsites Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Sunsites
- ●One soil character for all of Sunsites
- ●Frost dates read at Sunsites's scale: Mar 13 to Nov 15
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Sunsites's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Sunsites
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Sunsites, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Sunsites averages can't show:
We read public map data around Sunsites — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Sunsites average
How we know this about Sunsites
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 Sunsites’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 Sunsites
When does frost risk typically end in Sunsites?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Sunsites typically lands around Mar 13, 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 3.
When is the first frost in Sunsites?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Sunsites typically arrives around Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 1, so the watching starts about Oct 16 — about 247 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Sunsites?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Sunsites sees about 247 frost-free days — roughly Mar 13 through Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 3 to Nov 1, about 212 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Sunsites?
The federal record around Sunsites runs heavier than most — 123 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (64), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.5 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 Sunsites?
From about Oct 16 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 15 (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 15. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Sunsites's scale — its 8a band and its 247-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Sunsites'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 Sunsites’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Sunsites's own scale — its own ~247-day season between 28°F freezes, the 570 acres it covers and 123 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Sunsites's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Sunsites's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 13 and Nov 15 and the ~247-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 123 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Sunsites, the closest Nitrate record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Sunsites's boundary and the 570 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~247-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Sunsites's own centroid, the Madrean ArchipelagoUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Sunsites 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 Sunsites's 570 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cochise County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cochise 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 Cochise County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Sunsites's 570 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Sunsites you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 570 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.5 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 Sunsites-wide figureread your own land →
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