Atascosa County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Growers here do well with artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Atascosa County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Atascosa 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 Atascosa County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Atascosa County — the short answer
Atascosa County, Texas: USDA zone 9a, about 307 days between hard freezes, across 781K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~307
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 781K 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 9a is Atascosa County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Atascosa County's 307-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Atascosa County
Across a year, Atascosa County accumulates about 7,654 growing degree days above 50°F, about 1,830 more than the middle Texas county — ahead of 227 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 348 hours below 45°F, 747 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 Atascosa County
Across Atascosa County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Floresville, Monteola, and Hanis are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.5–7.3, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
21%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Atascosa County
The USDA soil survey maps 81% of Atascosa County as well drained — but another 18% drains differently: 7% somewhat excessively drained, 7% moderately well drained.
Floresville is the most extensive named soil at 9% of mapped acres, then Monteola (9%) and Hanis (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 Atascosa County
Each reading below is measured for Atascosa 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 Atascosa County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — 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 Atascosa County runs about pH 6.5–7.3, 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
MeasuredAtascosa County runs about 307 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
Winter hardiness
MeasuredAtascosa County sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a.
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 Atascosa County is in
Atascosa County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Southern Texas Plains (54%) and East Central Texas Plains (46%). 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 Atascosa County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Atascosa County's own USDA zone 9a and its own 307-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 Atascosa 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 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 4 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 8 — 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 Atascosa County
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Atascosa County
USGS estimates 12,121 lb of Glyphosate on Atascosa County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (8,483 lb) and Atrazine (2,417 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 Atascosa County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Atascosa County — 369 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 9 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
There's a meaningful federal record across Atascosa County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Atascosa County
Closest first, across Atascosa County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SHORT STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- 74-RANCHUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- ASSOCIATED SERVICESUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- HINDES FARMUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- ATASCOSA COUNTY PCT 2Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- CHARLOTTE ISDUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- JOURDANTON GAS PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- VRANA GROCERY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- BJ SERVICESUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- SCHLUMBERGER WELL SERVICESUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- KAYS GULFUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- PRIMROSE CTRUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Atascosa 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 Atascosa County.
Total Sites
369
across Atascosa County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
9 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Atascosa County
Severity Distribution
across Atascosa County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Atascosa County, two things run higher than the national average across Atascosa County — Nitrate (160 sites) and PFAS (4 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Atascosa 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 Atascosa County average
Your land is one point inside Atascosa County
Everything above resolves to Atascosa County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 781K 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 Atascosa County Average
Atascosa County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Atascosa County
- ●One soil character for all of Atascosa County
- ●Frost dates read at Atascosa County's scale: Feb 4 to Dec 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Atascosa County's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Atascosa County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Atascosa County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Atascosa County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Atascosa County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Atascosa County average
How we know this about Atascosa 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 Atascosa County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Atascosa County
When does frost risk typically end in Atascosa County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Atascosa County typically lands around Feb 4, 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 25.
How long is the growing season in Atascosa County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Atascosa County sees about 307 frost-free days — roughly Feb 4 through Dec 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 25 to Nov 24, about 272 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Atascosa County?
The federal record around Atascosa County is a meaningful one — 369 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (160), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles 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.
Everything above is measured at Atascosa County's scale — its 9a band and its 307-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Atascosa 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 Atascosa County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Atascosa County's own scale — its own ~307-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 369 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Atascosa County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Atascosa County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~307-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Atascosa CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 369 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Atascosa County's boundary and the 780,506 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~307-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Atascosa County spans, Southern Texas Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Atascosa County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Atascosa 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 Atascosa County — the ~307 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 Atascosa County's 780,506 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 369 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 Atascosa Countyread your own land →