Aransas County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
These conditions suit okra, meyer lemon, california poppy, and artichoke — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Aransas County lies within the Coastal Bend and the Gulf Coast — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Aransas County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Aransas 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 Aransas County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Aransas County — the short answer
Aransas County, Texas: USDA zone 9b, about 332 days between hard freezes, across 161K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jan 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~332
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 161K 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 9b is Aransas County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Aransas County's 332-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Aransas County
Across a year, Aransas County accumulates about 7,947 growing degree days above 50°F, about 2,123 more than the middle Texas county — ahead of 237 of Texas’s 254 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 0 hours below 45°F, 1,095 fewer than the Texas middle of 1,095. 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 Aransas County
Across Aransas County, the ground is predominantly Entisols, where Mustang, Galveston, and Narta are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately well drained with a fine sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.4–8.1, slightly alkaline. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Entisols
Drainage
Moderately well drained
Prime farmland
6%
Hydric soils
56%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Aransas County
The USDA soil survey maps 22% of Aransas County as moderately well drained — but another 36% drains differently: 19% poorly drained, 8% very poorly drained.
Mustang is the most extensive named soil at 21% of mapped acres, then Galveston (20%) and Narta (11%).
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 Aransas County
Each reading below is measured for Aransas 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 Aransas County are moderately well drained, in hydrologic group D — roughly the middle of the drainage range.
This is close to the middle most vegetables prefer: it holds enough water to carry a crop between rains without staying waterlogged. The catch is that a wet spring or a low corner can still tip it soggy.
Plant on the site as-is for most crops, but keep the lowest, slowest-draining beds for moisture-tolerant plantings.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Aransas County runs about pH 7.4–8.1, on the alkaline side.
Many vegetables cope, but acid-lovers like blueberries struggle, and iron and manganese lock up above about pH 7.5 — leaves yellow between the veins even in rich soil.
Elemental sulfur and generous organic matter lower pH slowly for the beds that need it; test first so you add only what the soil actually calls for.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 56% of Aransas County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredAransas County runs about 332 days between hard freezes — close to year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
The kind of country Aransas County is in
Aransas County sits in the Western Gulf Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Aransas County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Aransas County's own USDA zone 9b and its own 332-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 Texas profile.
Is it too late to plant in Aransas County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Jan 25 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 23 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the calendar nearly circles: cool-season crops take the winter shift, and the next window is always close.
Documented around Aransas County
- monarch butterfly16 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Aransas County
USGS estimates 556 lb of Triclopyr on Aransas County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (222 lb) and Dicamba (66 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 Aransas County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Aransas County — 135 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 Aransas 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 Aransas County
Closest first, across Aransas County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- AH-80-49-802Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- 7-ELEVEN STORE 36506Underground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- AH-80-49-7xxNitrate · 3.3 mi
- AH-79-56-901Nitrate · 3.3 mi
- LOVELY SUPERMARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- AH-79-64-307Nitrate · 3.9 mi
- AH-80-49-708Nitrate · 4.0 mi
- AH-79-64-304Nitrate · 4.2 mi
- AH-79-64-305Nitrate · 4.3 mi
- CVS PHARMACY #10926Brownfields · 4.5 mi
- AH-79-64-301Nitrate · 4.8 mi
- AH-79-64-306Nitrate · 4.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Aransas 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 Aransas County.
Total Sites
135
across Aransas County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
across Aransas County
Severity Distribution
across Aransas County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Aransas County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 58 sites across Aransas County. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Aransas 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 Aransas County average
Your land is one point inside Aransas County
Everything above resolves to Aransas County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 161K 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 Aransas County Average
Aransas County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9b, averaged across Aransas County
- ●One soil character for all of Aransas County
- ●Frost dates read at Aransas County's scale: Jan 25 to Dec 23
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Aransas County's 9b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Aransas County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Aransas County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Aransas County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Aransas County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Aransas County average
How we know this about Aransas 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 Aransas County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Aransas County
When does frost risk typically end in Aransas County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Aransas County typically lands around Jan 25, 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 Feb 15.
How long is the growing season in Aransas County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Aransas County sees about 332 frost-free days — roughly Jan 25 through Dec 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 15 to Dec 9, about 297 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Aransas County?
The federal record around Aransas County shows 135 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (69), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.6 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 Aransas County's scale — its 9b band and its 332-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Aransas 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 Texas's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Aransas County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Aransas County's own scale — its own ~332-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 135 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Aransas County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Aransas County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~332-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Aransas CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 135 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 1.6 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Aransas County's boundary and the 161,453 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9b and a ~332-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Aransas County sitting wholly inside the Western Gulf Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Aransas County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Aransas County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Texas grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Texas
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Aransas County — the ~332 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 Aransas County's 161,453 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 135 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 Aransas Countyread your own land →