Drowning Creek, Oklahoma, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Expect cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Drowning Creek, 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 Drowning Creek 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 Drowning Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Drowning Creek — the short answer
Drowning Creek, Oklahoma: USDA zone 7a, about 227 days between hard freezes, across 568 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~227
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 568 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 7a is Drowning Creek's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Drowning Creek's 227-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Drowning Creek
Each reading below is measured for Drowning Creek itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDrowning Creek runs about 227 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
MeasuredDrowning Creek 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 Drowning Creek is in
Drowning Creek sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Drowning Creek's own centroid rather than borrowed from Delaware County.
What Grows in Drowning Creek
Every plant below cleared Drowning Creek's own zone 7a and its 227-day season. Each card opens that plant's Oklahoma profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Drowning Creek?
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 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 8 — 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's on the federal record near Drowning Creek
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Drowning Creek. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Hi Lift Marina Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- Zena Land CompanyUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- Dripping Springs MarinaUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- Port Carlos Marina LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.6 mi
- Cherokee Yacht ClubUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.7 mi
- Harvey CharbonneauUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.9 mi
- Okla Dept Of Ag/Forestry DivUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.0 mi
- Delaware County Dist. #2Underground Storage Tanks · 6.1 mi
- The Y StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.1 mi
- Delaware County Maintenance HdgUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.2 mi
- 22N-23E-11 BBB 1Nitrate · 6.2 mi
- Tomcat Corner #2Underground Storage Tanks · 6.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Drowning Creek'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 Drowning Creek.
Total Sites
75
within ~10 miles of Drowning Creek
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Drowning Creek
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Drowning Creek
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Drowning Creek, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 63 sites within ~10 miles of Drowning Creek. 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 Drowning Creek
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 Drowning Creek average
Your land is one point inside Drowning Creek
Everything above resolves to Drowning Creek as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 568 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 town 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 Drowning Creek Average
Drowning Creek Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Drowning Creek
- ●One soil character for all of Drowning Creek
- ●Frost dates read at Drowning Creek's scale: Mar 26 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Drowning Creek's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Drowning Creek
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Drowning Creek, Oklahoma — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Drowning Creek averages can't show:
We read public map data around Drowning Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Drowning Creek average
How we know this about Drowning Creek
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Drowning Creek’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 town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-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 Drowning Creek
When does frost risk typically end in Drowning Creek?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Drowning Creek typically lands around Mar 26, 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 16.
When is the first frost in Drowning Creek?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Drowning Creek typically arrives around Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 25, so the watching starts about Oct 9 — about 227 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Drowning Creek?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Drowning Creek sees about 227 frost-free days — roughly Mar 26 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 16 to Oct 25, about 192 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Drowning Creek?
The federal record around Drowning Creek shows 75 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (63), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.4 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Drowning Creek?
From about Oct 9 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 8 (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 8. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Drowning Creek's scale — its 7a band and its 227-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Drowning Creek'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 Drowning Creek’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Drowning Creek's own scale — its own ~227-day season between 28°F freezes, the 568 acres it covers and 75 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Drowning Creek's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Drowning Creek's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 26 and Nov 8 and the ~227-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 75 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Drowning Creek, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Drowning Creek's boundary and the 568 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~227-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Drowning Creek's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Drowning Creek's 568 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Delaware County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Delaware 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 Delaware County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Drowning Creek's 568 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Drowning Creek you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 568 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.4 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 Drowning Creek-wide figureread your own land →
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