Tulsa County, in Oklahoma, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Tulsa County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Tulsa 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 Tulsa County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Tulsa County — the short answer
Tulsa County, Oklahoma: USDA zone 7b, about 246 days between hard freezes, across 365K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~246
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 365K 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 7b is Tulsa County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Tulsa County's 246-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Tulsa County
Across a year, Tulsa County accumulates about 4,681 growing degree days above 50°F, about 39 fewer than the middle Oklahoma county — ahead of 33 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 1,966 hours below 45°F, 47 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 Tulsa County
Across Tulsa County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Dennis, Radley, and Okemah are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally somewhat poorly drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.6–6.5, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Somewhat poorly drained
Prime farmland
40%
Hydric soils
8%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Tulsa County
The USDA soil survey maps 50% of Tulsa County as somewhat poorly drained — but another 42% drains differently: 26% well drained, 11% moderately well drained.
Dennis is the most extensive named soil at 26% of mapped acres, then Radley (8%) and Okemah (7%).
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 Tulsa County
Each reading below is measured for Tulsa 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 Tulsa County are somewhat poorly drained, in hydrologic group D — ground that sheds water slowly.
Beds can stay saturated for days after heavy rain, and the roots of most vegetables, berries, and fruit trees suffocate or rot in soil that never drains.
Raised beds or mounded rows lift roots above the wet zone; choose water-tolerant crops for the lowest spots.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Tulsa County runs about pH 5.6–6.5, 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
MeasuredTulsa County runs about 246 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
MeasuredTulsa County sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Tulsa County is in
Tulsa County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Central Irregular Plains (81%) and Cross Timbers (19%). 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 Tulsa County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Tulsa County's own USDA zone 7b and its own 246-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 Tulsa County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 15; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 15 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 16 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Tulsa County
- Japanese beetle9 documented records
- monarch butterfly356 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Tulsa County
USGS estimates 5,709 lb of Glyphosate on Tulsa County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (4,452 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (1,591 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 Tulsa County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Tulsa County — 2,771 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 17 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Tulsa County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Tulsa County
Closest first, across Tulsa County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DOLLAR FIFTY CLEANERSBrownfields · 450 ft
- Ranch Acres Car Care (Former Texaco)Underground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- Mac's Classic Conoco LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- WALGREENS #3018Brownfields · 850 ft
- Timmons Oil Co IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- Southwestern Bell Telephone CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- WALMART NEIGHBORHOOD MARKET #6170Brownfields · 1000 ft
- JIFFY LUBE #524Brownfields · 1100 ft
- Rapid LubeUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- PROGRESSIVE BRASS MFG CO / PROGRESSIVE BRASS MFG COToxics Release Inventory · 1300 ft
- Ranch Acres Gulf IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- Farris Express Fuels Inc #110Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Tulsa 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 Tulsa County.
Sources Checked
across Tulsa County
Severity Distribution
across Tulsa County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Tulsa County, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 270 sites across Tulsa County. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Tulsa 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 Tulsa County average
Your land is one point inside Tulsa County
Everything above resolves to Tulsa County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 365K 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 Tulsa County Average
Tulsa County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Tulsa County
- ●One soil character for all of Tulsa County
- ●Frost dates read at Tulsa County's scale: Mar 15 to Nov 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Tulsa County's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Tulsa County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Tulsa County, Oklahoma — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Tulsa County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Tulsa County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Tulsa County average
How we know this about Tulsa 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 Tulsa County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Tulsa County
When does frost risk typically end in Tulsa County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Tulsa County typically lands around Mar 15, 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 5.
How long is the growing season in Tulsa County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Tulsa County sees about 246 frost-free days — roughly Mar 15 through Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 5 to Nov 2, about 211 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Tulsa County?
The federal record around Tulsa County runs heavier than most — 2,771 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,585), the nearest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
Everything above is measured at Tulsa County's scale — its 7b band and its 246-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Tulsa 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 Tulsa County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Tulsa County's own scale — its own ~246-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 2,771 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Tulsa County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Tulsa County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~246-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Tulsa CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 2,771 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile outFederal environmental registers
- Tulsa County's boundary and the 364,954 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~246-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Tulsa County spans, Central Irregular Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Tulsa County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Tulsa 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 Tulsa County — the ~246 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 Tulsa County's 364,954 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 2,771 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 Tulsa Countyread your own land →