Dickens County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
The conditions favor cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Dickens County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Dickens 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 Dickens County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Dickens County — the short answer
Dickens County, Texas: USDA zone 8a, about 242 days between hard freezes, across 577K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~242
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 577K 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 8a is Dickens County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Dickens County's 242-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Dickens County
Across a year, Dickens County accumulates about 5,036 growing degree days above 50°F, about 788 fewer than the middle Texas county — ahead of 42 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 1,662 hours below 45°F, 567 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 Dickens County
Across Dickens County, the ground is predominantly Inceptisols, where Miles, Olton, and Deepwood are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.0–7.6, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Inceptisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
23%
Hydric soils
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Dickens County
The USDA soil survey maps 98% of Dickens County as well drained — but another 2% drains differently: 1% somewhat excessively drained, 1% poorly drained.
Miles is the most extensive named soil at 22% of mapped acres, then Olton (12%) and Deepwood (10%).
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 Dickens County
Each reading below is measured for Dickens 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 Dickens County are well drained, in hydrologic group B — 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 Dickens County runs about pH 7.0–7.6, 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
MeasuredDickens County runs about 242 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
MeasuredDickens County sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
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 Dickens County is in
Dickens County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Southwestern Tablelands (94%) and High Plains (6%). 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 Dickens County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Dickens County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 242-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 Dickens County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 20; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 20 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 17 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Dickens County
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Dickens County
USGS estimates 128,478 lb of Glyphosate on Dickens County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (25,648 lb) and Dicamba (18,563 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 Dickens County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Dickens County — 23 documented sites across 2 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 brownfield site. Former commercial or industrial land where legacy contamination may persist.
The federal record across Dickens 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 Dickens County
Closest first, across Dickens County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- GTSW DICKENS MICROWAVE BUILDINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- CROSBY COUNTY FUEL ASSOCIATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- TXDOT DICKENS MAINTENANCE FACILITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- DICKENS TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- WYLIE 5Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- PIONEER OIL 301Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- ARMSTRONG GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- SPUR SUBSTATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- PORTER OILUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- G & L PARTNERS CONVENIENCE STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- TXDOT DICKENSBrownfields · 9.6 mi
- ALLSUPS 82Underground Storage Tanks · 9.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Dickens 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 Dickens County.
Severity Distribution
across Dickens 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.
Check your specific parcel in Dickens 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 Dickens County average
Your land is one point inside Dickens County
Everything above resolves to Dickens County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 577K 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 Dickens County Average
Dickens County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Dickens County
- ●One soil character for all of Dickens County
- ●Frost dates read at Dickens County's scale: Mar 20 to Nov 17
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Dickens County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Dickens County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Dickens County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Dickens County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Dickens County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Dickens County average
How we know this about Dickens 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 Dickens County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Dickens County
When does frost risk typically end in Dickens County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Dickens County typically lands around Mar 20, 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 10.
How long is the growing season in Dickens County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Dickens County sees about 242 frost-free days — roughly Mar 20 through Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 10 to Nov 3, about 207 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Dickens County?
The federal record around Dickens County is light — 23 documented sites across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (22), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles 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 Dickens County's scale — its 8a band and its 242-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Dickens 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 Dickens County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Dickens County's own scale — its own ~242-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 23 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Dickens County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Dickens County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~242-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Dickens CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 23 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Dickens County's boundary and the 577,103 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~242-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Dickens County spans, Southwestern Tablelands the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Dickens County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Dickens 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 Dickens County — the ~242 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 Dickens County's 577,103 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 23 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 Dickens Countyread your own land →