Bowie County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Bowie County lies within the Piney Woods — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Bowie County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Bowie 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 Bowie County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Bowie County — the short answer
Bowie County, Texas: USDA zone 8b, about 274 days between hard freezes, across 566K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~274
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 566K 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 8b is Bowie County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bowie County's 274-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Bowie County
Across a year, Bowie County accumulates about 5,489 growing degree days above 50°F, about 335 fewer than the middle Texas county — ahead of 65 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 1,239 hours below 45°F, 144 more 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 Bowie County
Across Bowie County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Sawyer, Woodtell, and Annona are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.6–5.8, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Moderately well drained
Prime farmland
40%
Hydric soils
24%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Bowie County
The USDA soil survey maps 36% of Bowie County as moderately well drained — but another 60% drains differently: 27% well drained, 20% poorly drained.
Sawyer is the most extensive named soil at 19% of mapped acres, then Woodtell (7%) and Annona (6%).
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 Bowie County
Each reading below is measured for Bowie 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 Bowie 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 Bowie County runs about pH 4.6–5.8, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 24% of Bowie 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
MeasuredBowie County runs about 274 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 Bowie County is in
Bowie County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — South Central Plains (92%) and East Central Texas Plains (8%). 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 Bowie County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Bowie County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 274-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 Bowie 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 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 25 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 26 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
Documented around Bowie County
- monarch butterfly77 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Bowie County
USGS estimates 18,585 lb of 2,4-d on Bowie County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (17,674 lb) and Dicamba (7,101 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 Bowie County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Bowie County — 498 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 4 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Bowie County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Bowie County
Closest first, across Bowie County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BOWIE COUNTY BUS TRANSPORTATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- BUDDYS CHEVRONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- PHILLIPS 66Underground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- EZ MART 54Underground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- RCAG TEXARKANA TXUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- EZ MART 16Underground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- MARJORIE COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- PAPASUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- J R KNIGHTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- CROSS ROADSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- SPENCER GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- TXDOT MAINT FACILITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bowie 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 Bowie County.
Severity Distribution
across Bowie County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bowie County, two things run higher than the national average across Bowie County — PFAS (6 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (385 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Bowie 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 Bowie County average
Your land is one point inside Bowie County
Everything above resolves to Bowie County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 566K 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 Bowie County Average
Bowie County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Bowie County
- ●One soil character for all of Bowie County
- ●Frost dates read at Bowie County's scale: Feb 25 to Nov 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bowie County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Bowie County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bowie County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bowie County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bowie County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bowie County average
How we know this about Bowie 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 Bowie County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Bowie County
When does frost risk typically end in Bowie County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bowie County typically lands around Feb 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 Mar 18.
How long is the growing season in Bowie County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bowie County sees about 274 frost-free days — roughly Feb 25 through Nov 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 18 to Nov 12, about 239 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bowie County?
The federal record around Bowie County runs heavier than most — 498 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (385), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
Everything above is measured at Bowie County's scale — its 8b band and its 274-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bowie 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 Bowie County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Bowie County's own scale — its own ~274-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 498 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bowie County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bowie County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~274-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Bowie CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 498 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
- Bowie County's boundary and the 566,361 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~274-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Bowie County spans, South Central Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Bowie County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Bowie 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 Bowie County — the ~274 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 Bowie County's 566,361 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 498 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 Bowie Countyread your own land →