Bastrop County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
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
Bastrop County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Bastrop 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 Bastrop County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Bastrop County — the short answer
Bastrop County, Texas: USDA zone 9a, about 295 days between hard freezes, across 568K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~295
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 568K 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 Bastrop County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bastrop County's 295-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Bastrop County
Across a year, Bastrop County accumulates about 6,732 growing degree days above 50°F, about 908 more than the middle Texas county — ahead of 195 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 622 hours below 45°F, 473 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 Bastrop County
Across Bastrop County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Edge, Crockett, and Padina are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.9–6.5, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
7%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Bastrop County
The USDA soil survey maps 51% of Bastrop County as well drained — but another 48% drains differently: 45% moderately well drained, 4% somewhat excessively drained.
Edge is the most extensive named soil at 22% of mapped acres, then Crockett (14%) and Padina (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 Bastrop County
Each reading below is measured for Bastrop 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 Bastrop 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 Bastrop County runs about pH 5.9–6.5, 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
MeasuredBastrop County runs about 295 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
MeasuredBastrop 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 Bastrop County is in
Bastrop County sits in the East Central Texas Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Bastrop County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Bastrop County's own USDA zone 9a and its own 295-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 Bastrop County?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 11 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 3 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. And with a calendar this mild, the honest answer is that planting barely stops — winter opens seasons colder regions never see.
Documented around Bastrop County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Bastrop County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 591 miles off. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly46 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Bastrop County
USGS estimates 13,123 lb of 2,4-d on Bastrop County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (4,157 lb) and Atrazine (1,170 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 Bastrop County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Bastrop County — 528 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Bastrop 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 Bastrop County
Closest first, across Bastrop County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- WINNIE PETTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- FRERICH STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- JOHNNY W SCHROEDER GULFUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- UNIVERSAL ELECTRIC CONSTRUCTIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- LCRA POWELL BEND MINEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- LOUIS BAYERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- LONG CHRYSLERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- T JS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- WRIGHT DISTRIBUTINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- RLH GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- BASTROP RANCHUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- A J SHIMEKUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bastrop 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 Bastrop County.
Total Sites
528
across Bastrop County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Bastrop County
Severity Distribution
across Bastrop County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bastrop County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 324 sites across Bastrop County. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Bastrop 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 Bastrop County average
Your land is one point inside Bastrop County
Everything above resolves to Bastrop County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 568K 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 Bastrop County Average
Bastrop County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Bastrop County
- ●One soil character for all of Bastrop County
- ●Frost dates read at Bastrop County's scale: Feb 11 to Dec 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bastrop County's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Bastrop County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bastrop County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bastrop County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bastrop County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bastrop County average
How we know this about Bastrop 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 Bastrop County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Bastrop County
When does frost risk typically end in Bastrop County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bastrop County typically lands around Feb 11, 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 Mar 4.
How long is the growing season in Bastrop County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bastrop County sees about 295 frost-free days — roughly Feb 11 through Dec 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 4 to Nov 19, about 260 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bastrop County?
The federal record around Bastrop County is a meaningful one — 528 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (324), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Bastrop County's scale — its 9a band and its 295-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bastrop 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 Bastrop County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Bastrop County's own scale — its own ~295-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 528 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bastrop County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bastrop County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~295-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Bastrop CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 528 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Bastrop County's boundary and the 568,464 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~295-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Bastrop County sitting wholly inside the East Central Texas PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Bastrop County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Bastrop 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 Bastrop County — the ~295 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 Bastrop County's 568,464 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 528 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 Bastrop Countyread your own land →