Edwards County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Edwards County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Edwards 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 Edwards County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Edwards County — the short answer
Edwards County, Texas: USDA zone 8b, about 280 days between hard freezes, across 1.4M acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~280
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 1.4M 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 Edwards County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Edwards County's 280-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Edwards County
Across a year, Edwards County accumulates about 5,726 growing degree days above 50°F, about 98 fewer than the middle Texas county — ahead of 113 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 884 hours below 45°F, 211 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 Edwards County
Across Edwards County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Eckrant, Ector, and Oplin are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a very cobbly silty clay surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.5–7.9, slightly alkaline. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
0%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Edwards County
Eckrant is the most extensive named soil at 58% of mapped acres, then Ector (9%) and Oplin (7%).
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 Edwards County
Each reading below is measured for Edwards 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 Edwards County are well drained, in hydrologic group D — 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 Edwards County runs about pH 7.5–7.9, 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
MeasuredEdwards County runs about 280 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
MeasuredEdwards 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 Edwards County is in
Edwards County sits in the Edwards Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Edwards County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Edwards County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 280-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 Edwards County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 22 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 29 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. In a climate this gentle, “too late” hardly applies — the question becomes which crops prefer the cooler months ahead.
Documented around Edwards County
- monarch butterfly32 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Edwards County
USGS estimates 4,001 lb of 2,4-d on Edwards County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Dicamba (1,600 lb) and Glyphosate (1,080 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 Edwards County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Edwards County — 26 documented sites across 3 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 Edwards 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 Edwards County
Closest first, across Edwards County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SOUTHWEST TEXAS TELEPHONEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- CLOSED PRIVATE OWNERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- TXDOT ROCKSPRINGS FACILITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- CARTA VALLEY COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- D-C QUICK STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- CLOSED FACILITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- TEXAS GATHERINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- BARKSDALE COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- ROCKSPRINGS TX VORTACUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- ROCKSPRINGS TX RCAGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- STEVES COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- SORRELLS SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Edwards 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 Edwards County.
Severity Distribution
across Edwards County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Edwards County, two things run higher than the national average across Edwards County — Nitrate (8 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (17 sites). 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.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Edwards 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 Edwards County average
Your land is one point inside Edwards County
Everything above resolves to Edwards County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 1.4M 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 Edwards County Average
Edwards County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Edwards County
- ●One soil character for all of Edwards County
- ●Frost dates read at Edwards County's scale: Feb 22 to Nov 29
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Edwards County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Edwards County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Edwards County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Edwards County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Edwards County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Edwards County average
How we know this about Edwards 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 Edwards County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Edwards County
When does frost risk typically end in Edwards County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Edwards County typically lands around Feb 22, 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 15.
How long is the growing season in Edwards County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Edwards County sees about 280 frost-free days — roughly Feb 22 through Nov 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 15 to Nov 15, about 245 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Edwards County?
The federal record around Edwards County is light — 26 documented sites across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (17), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Edwards County's scale — its 8b band and its 280-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Edwards 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 Edwards County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Edwards County's own scale — its own ~280-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 26 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Edwards County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Edwards County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~280-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Edwards CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 26 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
- Edwards County's boundary and the 1,355,437 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~280-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Edwards County sitting wholly inside the Edwards PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Edwards County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Edwards 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 Edwards County — the ~280 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 Edwards County's 1,355,437 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 26 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 Edwards Countyread your own land →