Brooks County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Expect okra, meyer lemon, california poppy, and artichoke to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Brooks County lies within the Coastal Bend — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Brooks County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Brooks 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 Brooks County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Brooks County — the short answer
Brooks County, Texas: USDA zone 9b, about 318 days between hard freezes, across 604K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jan 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~318
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 604K 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 Brooks County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Brooks County's 318-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Brooks County
Across a year, Brooks County accumulates about 8,552 growing degree days above 50°F, about 2,728 more than the middle Texas county — ahead of 247 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 Brooks County
Across Brooks County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Sarita, Nueces, and Falfurrias are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately well drained with a fine sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.4–6.8, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Moderately well drained
Hydric soils
5%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Brooks County
The USDA soil survey maps 41% of Brooks County as moderately well drained — but another 59% drains differently: 35% well drained, 21% somewhat excessively drained.
Sarita is the most extensive named soil at 25% of mapped acres, then Nueces (25%) and Falfurrias (21%).
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 Brooks County
Each reading below is measured for Brooks 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 Brooks County are moderately well drained, in hydrologic group A — 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 Brooks County runs about pH 6.4–6.8, 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
MeasuredBrooks County runs about 318 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
MeasuredBrooks County sits in USDA hardiness zone 9b.
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 Brooks County is in
Brooks 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 Brooks County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Brooks County's own USDA zone 9b and its own 318-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 Brooks 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 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Jan 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 12 — 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 Brooks County
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Brooks County
USGS estimates 4,990 lb of 2,4-d on Brooks County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (2,044 lb) and Triclopyr (261 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 Brooks County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Brooks County — 198 documented sites across 6 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 Brooks 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 Brooks County
Closest first, across Brooks County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CAGE RANCHUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- MILLS BENNETT ESTATEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- GARZAS DRIVE INUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- LETTYSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- GRAHAM RESOURCESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- LA CODORNIZ RANCHUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- HOWARD-WILLIAMS FUNERAL HOMEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- LOMA BLANCAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- KING RANCH ENCINO DIVISIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- CIRCLE R CONVENIENCE STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- BROOKS COUNTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- KELSEY PRODUCTION OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Brooks 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 Brooks County.
Total Sites
198
across Brooks County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
across Brooks County
Severity Distribution
across Brooks County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Brooks County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 134 sites across Brooks 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 Brooks 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 Brooks County average
Your land is one point inside Brooks County
Everything above resolves to Brooks County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 604K 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 Brooks County Average
Brooks County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9b, averaged across Brooks County
- ●One soil character for all of Brooks County
- ●Frost dates read at Brooks County's scale: Jan 28 to Dec 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Brooks County's 9b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Brooks County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Brooks County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Brooks County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Brooks County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Brooks County average
How we know this about Brooks 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 Brooks County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Brooks County
When does frost risk typically end in Brooks County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Brooks County typically lands around Jan 28, 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 18.
How long is the growing season in Brooks County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Brooks County sees about 318 frost-free days — roughly Jan 28 through Dec 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 18 to Nov 28, about 283 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Brooks County?
The federal record around Brooks County shows 198 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (134), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Brooks County's scale — its 9b band and its 318-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Brooks 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 Brooks County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Brooks County's own scale — its own ~318-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 198 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Brooks County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Brooks County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~318-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Brooks CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 198 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Brooks County's boundary and the 603,746 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9b and a ~318-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Brooks County sitting wholly inside the Western Gulf Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Brooks County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Brooks 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 Brooks County — the ~318 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 Brooks County's 603,746 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 198 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 Brooks Countyread your own land →