Bryan County, in Oklahoma, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Bryan County lies within the Southeastern Oklahoma / Ouachita Mountains (Kiamichi Country) — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Bryan County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Bryan 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 Bryan County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Bryan County — the short answer
Bryan County, Oklahoma: USDA zone 8a, about 248 days between hard freezes, across 579K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~248
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 579K 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 8a is Bryan County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bryan County's 248-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Bryan County
Across a year, Bryan County accumulates about 5,260 growing degree days above 50°F, about 540 more than the middle Oklahoma county — ahead of 71 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 1,499 hours below 45°F, 420 fewer 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 Bryan County
Across Bryan County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Bernow, Durant, and Dennis are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.8–6.7, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
65%
Hydric soils
3%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Bryan County
The USDA soil survey maps 51% of Bryan County as well drained — but another 45% drains differently: 31% moderately well drained, 13% somewhat poorly drained.
Bernow is the most extensive named soil at 15% of mapped acres, then Durant (13%) and Dennis (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 Bryan County
Each reading below is measured for Bryan 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 Bryan County are well drained, in hydrologic group D — 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 Bryan County runs about pH 5.8–6.7, 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
MeasuredBryan County runs about 248 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
MeasuredBryan County 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 Bryan County is in
Bryan County spans 3 EPA Level III ecoregions — East Central Texas Plains (40%), South Central Plains (39%) and Cross Timbers (21%). 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 Bryan County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Bryan County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 248-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 Bryan County?
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 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 17 — 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.
Documented around Bryan County
- monarch butterfly8 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Bryan County
USGS estimates 32,926 lb of 2,4-d on Bryan County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (8,041 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (6,990 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 Bryan County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Bryan County — 224 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 4 Superfund sites (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 Bryan 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 Bryan County
Closest first, across Bryan County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Mustangs Stable LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- Blue School Sd I-6Underground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
- CMC SOUTHERN POST - DURANTToxics Release Inventory · 4.9 mi
- Big E Industries, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 5.3 mi
- JCP Specialty FoodsUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.3 mi
- DURANT METAL SHREDDINGToxics Release Inventory · 5.4 mi
- Miller's Short StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.6 mi
- Flowers BakingUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.6 mi
- Mac's Wholesale Co., Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 5.6 mi
- J & L Gulf StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.9 mi
- (Formerly) J & L GulfUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.9 mi
- Robert F. HollandUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bryan 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 Bryan County.
Total Sites
224
across Bryan County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
4 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Severity Distribution
across Bryan County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bryan County, two things run higher than the national average across Bryan County — Superfund (4 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (172 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Bryan 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 Bryan County average
Your land is one point inside Bryan County
Everything above resolves to Bryan County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 579K 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 Bryan County Average
Bryan County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Bryan County
- ●One soil character for all of Bryan County
- ●Frost dates read at Bryan County's scale: Mar 14 to Nov 17
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bryan County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Bryan County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bryan County, Oklahoma — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bryan County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bryan County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bryan County average
How we know this about Bryan 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 Bryan County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Bryan County
When does frost risk typically end in Bryan County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bryan County 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.
How long is the growing season in Bryan County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bryan County sees about 248 frost-free days — roughly Mar 14 through Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 4 to Nov 3, about 213 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bryan County?
The federal record around Bryan County is a meaningful one — 224 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (172), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 2.9 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 Bryan County's scale — its 8a band and its 248-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bryan 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 Bryan County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Bryan County's own scale — its own ~248-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 224 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bryan County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bryan County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~248-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Bryan CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 224 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 2.9 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Bryan County's boundary and the 578,782 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~248-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 3 ecoregions Bryan County spans, East Central Texas Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Bryan County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Bryan 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 Bryan County — the ~248 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 Bryan County's 578,782 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 224 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 Bryan Countyread your own land →