Glasscock 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.
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.
Glasscock 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
Glasscock County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Glasscock 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 Glasscock County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Glasscock County — the short answer
Glasscock County, Texas: USDA zone 8a, about 248 days between hard freezes, across 576K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~248
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 576K 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 Glasscock County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Glasscock County's 248-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Glasscock County
Across a year, Glasscock County accumulates about 5,542 growing degree days above 50°F, about 282 fewer than the middle Texas county — ahead of 69 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 1,423 hours below 45°F, 328 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 Glasscock County
Across Glasscock County, the ground is predominantly Aridisols, where Reagan, Conger, and Angelo are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silty clay loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 8.1–8.2, moderately alkaline. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Aridisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
16%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Glasscock County
The USDA soil survey maps 97% of Glasscock County as well drained — but another 3% drains differently: 3% moderately well drained.
Reagan is the most extensive named soil at 37% of mapped acres, then Conger (15%) and Angelo (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 Glasscock County
Each reading below is measured for Glasscock 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 Glasscock 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 Glasscock County runs about pH 8.1–8.2, 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
MeasuredGlasscock County runs about 248 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
MeasuredGlasscock 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 Glasscock County is in
Glasscock County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — High Plains (70%) and Edwards Plateau (30%). 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 Glasscock County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Glasscock County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 248-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 Glasscock County?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 14 (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. 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.
What gets applied to farmland in Glasscock County
USGS estimates 270,689 lb of Glyphosate on Glasscock County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Dicamba (56,507 lb) and 2,4-d (33,712 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 Glasscock County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Glasscock County — 22 documented sites across 3 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 10 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Glasscock 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 Glasscock County
Closest first, across Glasscock County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- VIER S QUICK STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- SUMMERS SPRAYING SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- TXDOT GARDEN CITY FACILITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- GARDEN CITY 66Underground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- OFFICE LOCATED 5 1 4 MI W OFUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- ROBERTS STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- WYN-LOR GARDEN CITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- HALFMANNS GENERAL STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- GARDEN CITY ASPHALT PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 4.0 mi
- DEADWOOD CRYO PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 4.7 mi
- TROY VINES GARDEN CITY PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 4.9 mi
- BEARKAT CRYOGENIC PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 6.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Glasscock 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 Glasscock County.
Total Sites
22
across Glasscock County
Risk Level
Low
Highest-severity
10 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Glasscock County
Severity Distribution
across Glasscock County
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •TRI facilities report what they release. Check the wind — downwind beds catch more of it.
- •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 Glasscock 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 Glasscock County average
Your land is one point inside Glasscock County
Everything above resolves to Glasscock County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 576K 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 Glasscock County Average
Glasscock County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Glasscock County
- ●One soil character for all of Glasscock County
- ●Frost dates read at Glasscock County's scale: Mar 14 to Nov 17
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Glasscock County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Glasscock County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Glasscock County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Glasscock County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Glasscock County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Glasscock County average
How we know this about Glasscock 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 Glasscock County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Glasscock County
When does frost risk typically end in Glasscock County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Glasscock County typically lands around Mar 14, 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 4.
How long is the growing season in Glasscock County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Glasscock County sees about 248 frost-free days — roughly Mar 14 through Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 4 to Nov 3, about 213 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Glasscock County?
The federal record around Glasscock County is light — 22 documented sites across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Toxics Release Inventory entries (10), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Glasscock County's scale — its 8a band and its 248-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Glasscock 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 Glasscock County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Glasscock County's own scale — its own ~248-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 22 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Glasscock County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Glasscock County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~248-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Glasscock CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 22 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Glasscock County's boundary and the 576,139 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~248-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Glasscock County spans, High Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Glasscock 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 Glasscock County — the ~248 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 Glasscock County's 576,139 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 22 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 Glasscock Countyread your own land →