Delta County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Delta County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Delta 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 Delta County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Delta County — the short answer
Delta County, Texas: USDA zone 8b, about 274 days between hard freezes, across 164K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~274
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 164K 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 Delta County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Delta County's 274-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Delta County
Across a year, Delta County accumulates about 5,637 growing degree days above 50°F, about 187 fewer than the middle Texas county — ahead of 93 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 1,201 hours below 45°F, 106 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 Delta County
Across Delta County, the ground is predominantly Vertisols, where Leson, Wilson, and Houston Black are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately well drained with a clay surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.5–7.6, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Vertisols
Drainage
Moderately well drained
Prime farmland
40%
Hydric soils
12%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Delta County
The USDA soil survey maps 79% of Delta County as moderately well drained — but another 14% drains differently: 9% well drained, 4% somewhat poorly drained.
Leson is the most extensive named soil at 17% of mapped acres, then Wilson (15%) and Houston Black (14%).
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 Delta County
Each reading below is measured for Delta 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 Delta 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 Delta County runs about pH 6.5–7.6, 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
MeasuredDelta 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
Winter hardiness
MeasuredDelta County sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b.
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 Delta County is in
Delta County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Texas Blackland Prairies (85%) and East Central Texas Plains (15%). 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 Delta County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Delta 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 Delta 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 29; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 27 — 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.
What gets applied to farmland in Delta County
USGS estimates 30,164 lb of Glyphosate on Delta County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acephate (12,789 lb) and 2,4-d (8,129 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 Delta County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Delta County — 18 documented sites across 1 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 18 underground storage tanks. Registered underground fuel tanks — the #1 source of soil contamination in residential areas.
The federal record across Delta County is light. Growing food here starts from a strong position — a quick pass over the map tells you whether any recorded site sits near your land, and if one does, that's information to plant with, not a reason to stop.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Delta County
Closest first, across Delta County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- TXDOT MAINTENANCE FACILITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- PIONEER OILCO 25Underground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- MURRAYS BAR-B-QUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- THE HUB GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- FREEMANS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- NU WAYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- FRIENDS TIRE & MUFFLERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- SLIM WATERS SHAMROCKUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- STEVE FISHERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- DELTA SUPERMARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- DELTA FAMILY MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- SCHOOL BUS BARNUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Delta 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 Delta County.
Severity Distribution
across Delta County
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
Check your specific parcel in Delta 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 Delta County average
Your land is one point inside Delta County
Everything above resolves to Delta County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 164K 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 Delta County Average
Delta County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Delta County
- ●One soil character for all of Delta County
- ●Frost dates read at Delta County's scale: Feb 26 to Nov 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Delta County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Delta County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Delta County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Delta County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Delta County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Delta County average
How we know this about Delta 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 Delta County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Delta County
When does frost risk typically end in Delta County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Delta County typically lands around Feb 26, 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 19.
How long is the growing season in Delta County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Delta County sees about 274 frost-free days — roughly Feb 26 through Nov 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 19 to Nov 13, about 239 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Delta County?
The federal record around Delta County is light — 18 documented sites across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (18), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out — and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. Growing food here starts from a strong position; a soil test before new food beds settles any site-specific question.
Everything above is measured at Delta County's scale — its 8b band and its 274-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Delta 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 Delta County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Delta County's own scale — its own ~274-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 18 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Delta County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Delta 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 Delta CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 18 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile outFederal environmental registers
- Delta County's boundary and the 164,373 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 Delta County spans, Texas Blackland Prairies the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Delta 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 Delta 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 Delta County's 164,373 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 18 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 Delta Countyread your own land →