Comanche, Oklahoma, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Comanche, 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 Comanche 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 Comanche — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Comanche — the short answer
Comanche, Oklahoma: USDA zone 8a, about 249 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~249
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City 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 8a is Comanche's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Comanche's 249-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Comanche
Each reading below is measured for Comanche itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredComanche runs about 249 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
MeasuredComanche 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 Comanche is in
Comanche sits in the Central Great Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Comanche's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Stephens County is mostly Cross Timbers. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Comanche
Every plant below cleared Comanche's own zone 8a and its 249-day season. Each card opens that plant's Oklahoma profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Comanche?
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 Feb 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 14 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 18 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
What's on the federal record near Comanche
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Comanche. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Comanche Public SchoolsUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- City Of ComancheUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- Pannell's Family FoodsUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Fred StaffordUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Hop & SackUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Comanche ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- Rowell's CitgoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- Crescent Oil Co #12Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- Love's Country Store #55Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- Unregistered RWUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- P's SuperetteUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- Comanche TexacoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Comanche'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 Comanche.
Total Sites
128
within ~10 miles of Comanche
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Comanche
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Comanche
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Comanche, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Comanche — Underground Storage Tanks (102 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (9 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Comanche
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 Comanche average
Your land is one point inside Comanche
Everything above resolves to Comanche 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 city 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 Comanche Average
Comanche Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Comanche
- ●One soil character for all of Comanche
- ●Frost dates read at Comanche's scale: Mar 14 to Nov 18
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Comanche's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Comanche
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Comanche, Oklahoma — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Comanche averages can't show:
We read public map data around Comanche — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Comanche average
How we know this about Comanche
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Comanche’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Comanche
When does frost risk typically end in Comanche?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Comanche typically lands around Mar 14, 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 4.
When is the first frost in Comanche?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Comanche typically arrives around Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 4, so the watching starts about Oct 19 — about 249 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Comanche?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Comanche sees about 249 frost-free days — roughly Mar 14 through Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 4 to Nov 4, about 214 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Comanche?
The federal record around Comanche is a meaningful one — 128 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (102), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Comanche?
From about Oct 19 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 18 (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 18. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Comanche's scale — its 8a band and its 249-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Comanche'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 Comanche’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Comanche's own scale — its own ~249-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,246 acres it covers and 128 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Comanche's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Comanche's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 14 and Nov 18 and the ~249-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 128 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Comanche, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Comanche's boundary and the 3,246 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~249-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Comanche sits in the Central Great Plains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Comanche's 3,246 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Stephens County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Stephens 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 Stephens County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Comanche's 3,246 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Comanche you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,246 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Comanche-wide figureread your own land →
More in Oklahoma
Wider growing context
What grows across OklahomaComanche sits outside our named growing regions, so Oklahoma as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides