Love County, in Oklahoma, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Love County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Love 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 Love County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Love County — the short answer
Love County, Oklahoma: USDA zone 8a, about 255 days between hard freezes, across 329K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~255
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 329K 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 Love County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Love County's 255-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Love County
Across a year, Love County accumulates about 5,310 growing degree days above 50°F, about 590 more than the middle Oklahoma county — ahead of 72 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 1,523 hours below 45°F, 396 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 Love County
Across Love County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Weatherford, Dougherty, and Eufaula are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.2–7.0, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
30%
Hydric soils
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Love County
The USDA soil survey maps 68% of Love County as well drained — but another 28% drains differently: 13% moderately well drained, 12% somewhat excessively drained.
Weatherford is the most extensive named soil at 17% of mapped acres, then Dougherty (12%) and Eufaula (9%).
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 Love County
Each reading below is measured for Love 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 Love 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 Love County runs about pH 6.2–7.0, 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
MeasuredLove County runs about 255 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
MeasuredLove 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 Love County is in
Love County sits in the Cross Timbers — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Love County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Love County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 255-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 Love County?
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 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 20 — 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 gets applied to farmland in Love County
USGS estimates 13,211 lb of 2,4-d on Love County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (4,260 lb) and Chlorpyrifos (3,226 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 Love County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Love County — 66 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Toxics Release Inventory facility. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Love County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Love County
Closest first, across Love County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Falconhead One StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- Marietta, Ok RmlrUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
- Don Cox GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.4 mi
- Turner SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
- Red River Demon.& ResearchUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.4 mi
- Gipson's General StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.2 mi
- Marietta PetroleumUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.3 mi
- Stuckeys Travel Center MariettaUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.3 mi
- DOLLAR TREE REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION CENTER OKLAHOMABrownfields · 6.4 mi
- Valero Corner Store #4430Underground Storage Tanks · 6.6 mi
- Franklin ConocoUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.6 mi
- Franklin Kerr McgeeUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Love 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 Love County.
Total Sites
66
across Love County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
across Love County
Severity Distribution
across Love County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Love County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 56 sites across Love County. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Love 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 Love County average
Your land is one point inside Love County
Everything above resolves to Love County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 329K 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 Love County Average
Love County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Love County
- ●One soil character for all of Love County
- ●Frost dates read at Love County's scale: Mar 10 to Nov 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Love County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Love County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Love County, Oklahoma — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Love County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Love County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Love County average
How we know this about Love 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 Love County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Love County
When does frost risk typically end in Love County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Love County typically lands around Mar 10, 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 Mar 31.
How long is the growing season in Love County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Love County sees about 255 frost-free days — roughly Mar 10 through Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 31 to Nov 6, about 220 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Love County?
The federal record around Love County shows 66 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (56), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 2.4 miles 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.
Everything above is measured at Love County's scale — its 8a band and its 255-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Love 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 Love County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Love County's own scale — its own ~255-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 66 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Love County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Love County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~255-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Love CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 66 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 2.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Love County's boundary and the 328,905 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~255-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Love County sitting wholly inside the Cross TimbersUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Love 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 Love County — the ~255 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 Love County's 328,905 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 66 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 Love Countyread your own land →