Beckham County, in Oklahoma, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Beckham County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Beckham County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Beckham County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Beckham County — the short answer
Beckham County, Oklahoma: USDA zone 7a, about 229 days between hard freezes, across 577K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~229
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 577K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 Beckham County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Beckham County's 229-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Beckham County
Across a year, Beckham County accumulates about 4,640 growing degree days above 50°F, about 80 fewer than the middle Oklahoma county — ahead of 30 of Oklahoma’s 77 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Winter banks about 2,036 hours below 45°F, 117 more than the Oklahoma middle of 1,919. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Beckham County
Across Beckham County, the ground is predominantly Inceptisols, where Nobscot, Grandfield, and Cordell are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.5–7.9, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Inceptisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
31%
Hydric soils
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Beckham County
The USDA soil survey maps 85% of Beckham County as well drained — but another 14% drains differently: 12% somewhat excessively drained, 1% somewhat poorly drained.
Nobscot is the most extensive named soil at 14% of mapped acres, then Grandfield (9%) and Cordell (8%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Beckham County
Each reading below is measured for Beckham County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Beckham County are well drained, in hydrologic group B — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Beckham County runs about pH 6.5–7.9, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredBeckham County runs about 229 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
MeasuredBeckham County 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 Beckham County is in
Beckham County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Central Great Plains (87%) and Southwestern Tablelands (13%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Beckham County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Beckham County's own USDA zone 7a and its own 229-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Oklahoma profile.
Is it too late to plant in Beckham County?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 25 (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 Beckham County
- monarch butterfly123 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Beckham County
USGS estimates 18,170 lb of Glyphosate on Beckham County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (13,069 lb) and Acetochlor (7,961 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Beckham County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Beckham County — 303 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Beckham County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Beckham County
Closest first, across Beckham County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 09N-24W-10 DDD 1Nitrate · 1.8 mi
- C & J ENERGY SERVICES INC SAYREBrownfields · 2.4 mi
- 09N-23W-09 BCC 2Nitrate · 2.5 mi
- 09N-23W-09 BCC 1Nitrate · 2.5 mi
- Sanders Amine PlantUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- 09N-23W-09 BCD 2Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- 09N-23W-09 BCD 3Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- 09N-23W-09 BCD 1Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- Bernice EasthamUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- Beckham CountyUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- PILOT THOMAS LOGISTICS - SAYRE OK TERMINALBrownfields · 2.8 mi
- Flying J Travel Plaza #705Underground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Beckham County'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 Beckham County.
Total Sites
303
across Beckham County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Beckham County
Severity Distribution
across Beckham County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Beckham County, two things run higher than the national average across Beckham County — Nitrate (82 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (188 sites). 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.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Beckham County
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 Beckham County average
Your land is one point inside Beckham County
Everything above resolves to Beckham County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 577K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Beckham County Average
Beckham County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Beckham County
- ●One soil character for all of Beckham County
- ●Frost dates read at Beckham County's scale: Mar 25 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Beckham County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Beckham County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Beckham County, Oklahoma — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Beckham County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Beckham County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Beckham County average
How we know this about Beckham County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Beckham County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Beckham County
When does frost risk typically end in Beckham County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Beckham County typically lands around Mar 25, 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 15.
How long is the growing season in Beckham County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Beckham County sees about 229 frost-free days — roughly Mar 25 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 15 to Oct 26, about 194 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Beckham County?
The federal record around Beckham County is a meaningful one — 303 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (188), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.8 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.
Everything above is measured at Beckham County's scale — its 7a band and its 229-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Beckham County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Oklahoma's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Beckham County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Beckham County's own scale — its own ~229-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 303 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Beckham County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Beckham County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~229-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Beckham CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 303 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 1.8 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Beckham County's boundary and the 577,072 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~229-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Beckham County spans, Central Great Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Beckham County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Beckham County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Oklahoma grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Oklahoma
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Beckham County — the ~229 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Beckham County's 577,072 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 303 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Beckham Countyread your own land →