Carmen, Oklahoma, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Carmen, 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 Carmen 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 Carmen — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Carmen — the short answer
Carmen, Oklahoma: USDA zone 7a, about 227 days between hard freezes, across 975 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~227
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 975 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 7a is Carmen's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Carmen's 227-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Carmen
Each reading below is measured for Carmen itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCarmen runs about 227 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
MeasuredCarmen sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Carmen is in
Carmen sits in the Central Great Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Carmen's own centroid rather than borrowed from Alfalfa County.
What Grows in Carmen
Every plant below cleared Carmen's own zone 7a and its 227-day season. Each card opens that plant's Oklahoma profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Carmen?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 10 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Carmen
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Carmen. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Farmers CooperativeUnderground Storage Tanks · 100 ft
- Jiffy Trip #2Underground Storage Tanks · 250 ft
- Carmen Oil CompanyUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- City Of CherokeeUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- 24N-12W-01 CCC 1Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- 24N-12W-05 CDD 1Nitrate · 2.9 mi
- Well Owner Name: DougNitrate · 2.9 mi
- Don HughesUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- 24N-11W-29 BDA 1Nitrate · 4.6 mi
- Farmers Coop StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.8 mi
- 24N-12W-35 CDA 1Nitrate · 4.8 mi
- 24N-13W-13 BBA 1Nitrate · 5.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Carmen'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 Carmen.
Total Sites
56
within ~10 miles of Carmen
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
44 nitrate monitoring sites
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Carmen
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Carmen, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 44 sites within ~10 miles of Carmen. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Carmen
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 Carmen average
Your land is one point inside Carmen
Everything above resolves to Carmen as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 975 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 Carmen Average
Carmen Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Carmen
- ●One soil character for all of Carmen
- ●Frost dates read at Carmen's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Carmen's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Carmen
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Carmen, Oklahoma — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Carmen averages can't show:
We read public map data around Carmen — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Carmen average
How we know this about Carmen
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 Carmen’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 Carmen
When does frost risk typically end in Carmen?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Carmen typically lands around Mar 28, 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 18.
When is the first frost in Carmen?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Carmen typically arrives around Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 27, so the watching starts about Oct 11 — about 227 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Carmen?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Carmen sees about 227 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Oct 27, about 192 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Carmen?
The federal record around Carmen shows 56 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (44), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Carmen?
From about Oct 11 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 10 (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 10. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Carmen's scale — its 7a band and its 227-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Carmen'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 Carmen’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Carmen's own scale — its own ~227-day season between 28°F freezes, the 975 acres it covers and 56 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Carmen's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Carmen's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 10 and the ~227-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 56 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Carmen, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Carmen's boundary and the 975 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~227-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Carmen's own centroid, the Central Great PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Carmen's 975 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Alfalfa County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Alfalfa County
- The growing challenges every Oklahoma grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Oklahoma
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Alfalfa County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Carmen's 975 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Carmen you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 975 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Carmen-wide figureread your own land →
More in Oklahoma
Wider growing context
What grows across OklahomaCarmen sits outside our named growing regions, so Oklahoma as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides