Byers, Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Growers here do well with cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Byers, 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 Byers 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 Byers — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Byers — the short answer
Byers, Texas: USDA zone 8a, about 253 days between hard freezes, across 636 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~253
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 636 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 8a is Byers's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Byers's 253-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Byers
Each reading below is measured for Byers itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredByers runs about 253 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
MeasuredByers 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 Byers is in
Byers sits in the Central Great Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Byers's own centroid rather than borrowed from Clay County.
What Grows in Byers
Every plant below cleared Byers's own zone 8a and its 253-day season. Each card opens that plant's Texas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Byers?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 21 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Byers
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Byers. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- KELLY PROPANE & FUELUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- DEAN DALE SUDPFAS · 0.7 mi
- TOBIN AND JACKSSuperfund · 1.5 mi
- TEXAS PRIDE N JOYUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
- Tillman County Dist #1Underground Storage Tanks · 5.3 mi
- Whiskey Creek-1Mining · 5.8 mi
- Taylor Estate-1Mining · 6.3 mi
- Whiskey Creek-3Mining · 6.3 mi
- Taylor Southeast-1Mining · 6.6 mi
- Whiskey Creek-2Mining · 7.2 mi
- Ship RanchMining · 7.7 mi
- Miller ProspectMining · 7.7 mi
3 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Byers'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 Byers.
Total Sites
15
within ~10 miles of Byers
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Byers
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Byers
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Mine waste leaches heavy metals. Test for lead, arsenic and cadmium before growing food here.
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
Check your specific parcel in Byers
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 Byers average
Your land is one point inside Byers
Everything above resolves to Byers as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 636 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 city 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 Byers Average
Byers Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Byers
- ●One soil character for all of Byers
- ●Frost dates read at Byers's scale: Mar 13 to Nov 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Byers's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Byers
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Byers, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Byers averages can't show:
We read public map data around Byers — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Byers average
How we know this about Byers
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Byers’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Byers
When does frost risk typically end in Byers?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Byers typically lands around Mar 13, 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 3.
When is the first frost in Byers?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Byers typically arrives around Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 7, so the watching starts about Oct 22 — about 253 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Byers?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Byers sees about 253 frost-free days — roughly Mar 13 through Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 3 to Nov 7, about 218 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Byers?
The federal record around Byers is a meaningful one — 15 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (9), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Byers?
From about Oct 22 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 21 (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 21. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Byers's scale — its 8a band and its 253-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Byers'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 Byers’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Byers's own scale — its own ~253-day season between 28°F freezes, the 636 acres it covers and 15 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Byers's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Byers's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 13 and Nov 21 and the ~253-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 15 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Byers, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Byers's boundary and the 636 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~253-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Byers's own centroid, the Central Great PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Byers's 636 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Clay County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Clay County
- The growing challenges every Texas grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Texas
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Clay County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Byers's 636 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Byers you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 636 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Byers-wide figureread your own land →
More in Texas
Wider growing context
What grows across TexasByers sits outside our named growing regions, so Texas as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides