Carson County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Expect cabbage, pawpaw, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Carson County lies within the Texas High Plains / Panhandle and the High Plains — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Carson County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Carson 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 Carson County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Carson County — the short answer
Carson County, Texas: USDA zone 7a, about 208 days between hard freezes, across 589K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~208
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 589K 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 7a is Carson County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Carson County's 208-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Carson County
Across a year, Carson County accumulates about 4,024 growing degree days above 50°F, about 1,800 fewer than the middle Texas county — ahead of 11 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 2,398 hours below 45°F, 1,303 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 Carson County
Across Carson County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Pullman, Pantex, and Mobeetie are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a clay loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.3–7.9, slightly alkaline. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
58%
Hydric soils
2%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Carson County
The USDA soil survey maps 93% of Carson County as well drained — but another 8% drains differently: 4% moderately well drained, 2% poorly drained.
Pullman is the most extensive named soil at 25% of mapped acres, then Pantex (22%) and Mobeetie (9%).
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 Carson County
Each reading below is measured for Carson 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 Carson 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 Carson County runs about pH 7.3–7.9, 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
Season length
MeasuredCarson County runs about 208 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredCarson County sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Carson County is in
Carson County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — High Plains (67%) and Southwestern Tablelands (33%). 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 Carson County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Carson County's own USDA zone 7a and its own 208-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 Carson County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 31 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Carson County
- monarch butterfly2 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Carson County
USGS estimates 205,894 lb of Glyphosate on Carson County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (91,582 lb) and 2,4-d (73,690 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 Carson County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Carson County — 77 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site. 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 Carson 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 Carson County
Closest first, across Carson County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- I & GN RR SURVEYUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- LOVES COUNTRY STORE 229Underground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- WHITE DEER GASCARD 220312Underground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- CONWAY SHELLUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- WHITE DEER FULL SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- TEXAS REDS TRUCK STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- AIR SPEED 20Underground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- GEORGES AUTO REPAIRUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- CARSON COUNTY PCT 4Underground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- BALLARD TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- CONWAY AUTOUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- BRYAN COMPRESSOR STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Carson 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 Carson County.
Sources Checked
across Carson County
Severity Distribution
across Carson County
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Carson 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 Carson County average
Your land is one point inside Carson County
Everything above resolves to Carson County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 589K 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 Carson County Average
Carson County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Carson County
- ●One soil character for all of Carson County
- ●Frost dates read at Carson County's scale: Apr 6 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Carson County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Carson County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Carson County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Carson County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Carson County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Carson County average
How we know this about Carson 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 Carson County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Carson County
When does frost risk typically end in Carson County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Carson County typically lands around Apr 6, 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 Apr 27.
How long is the growing season in Carson County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Carson County sees about 208 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 17, about 173 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Carson County?
The federal record around Carson County is a meaningful one — 77 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (47), 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 Carson County's scale — its 7a band and its 208-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Carson 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 Carson County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Carson County's own scale — its own ~208-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 77 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Carson County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Carson County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~208-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Carson CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 77 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
- Carson County's boundary and the 588,950 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~208-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Carson County spans, High Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Carson County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Carson 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 Carson County — the ~208 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 Carson County's 588,950 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 77 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 Carson Countyread your own land →