Goliad County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Expect artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Goliad County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Goliad 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 Goliad County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Goliad County — the short answer
Goliad County, Texas: USDA zone 9a, about 313 days between hard freezes, across 545K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jan 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~313
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 545K 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 9a is Goliad County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Goliad County's 313-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Goliad County
Across a year, Goliad County accumulates about 7,690 growing degree days above 50°F, about 1,866 more than the middle Texas county — ahead of 230 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 112 hours below 45°F, 983 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 Goliad County
Across Goliad County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Weesatche, Papalote, and Wyick are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately well drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.3–7.5, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Moderately well drained
Prime farmland
51%
Hydric soils
5%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Goliad County
The USDA soil survey maps 47% of Goliad County as moderately well drained — but another 52% drains differently: 41% well drained, 7% somewhat poorly drained.
Weesatche is the most extensive named soil at 14% of mapped acres, then Papalote (10%) and Wyick (8%).
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 Goliad County
Each reading below is measured for Goliad 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 Goliad County are moderately well drained, in hydrologic group C — 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 Goliad County runs about pH 6.3–7.5, 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
MeasuredGoliad County runs about 313 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
MeasuredGoliad County sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a.
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 Goliad County is in
Goliad County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — East Central Texas Plains (75%) and Western Gulf Coastal Plain (25%). 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 Goliad County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Goliad County's own USDA zone 9a and its own 313-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 Goliad 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 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Jan 31 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 10 — 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 Goliad County
USGS estimates 27,674 lb of Glyphosate on Goliad County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (18,332 lb) and Atrazine (11,691 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 Goliad County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Goliad County — 62 documented sites across 4 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Goliad County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Goliad County
Closest first, across Goliad County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HANDY STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- GOLIAD YARDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- HI-WAY GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- THE HAM STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- ELIGIO RODRIGUEZUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- NAVAL AUXILIARY LANDING FIELDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- COUNTRY CORNERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- LANEXS PLACEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- GOLIAD COUNTY PCT 1 BARNUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- LANEYS PLACEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- TGPL STATION 0005Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Goliad 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 Goliad County.
Total Sites
62
across Goliad County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Goliad County
Severity Distribution
across Goliad County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Goliad County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 20 sites across Goliad County. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Goliad 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 Goliad County average
Your land is one point inside Goliad County
Everything above resolves to Goliad County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 545K 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 Goliad County Average
Goliad County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Goliad County
- ●One soil character for all of Goliad County
- ●Frost dates read at Goliad County's scale: Jan 31 to Dec 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Goliad County's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Goliad County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Goliad County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Goliad County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Goliad County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Goliad County average
How we know this about Goliad 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 Goliad County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Goliad County
When does frost risk typically end in Goliad County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Goliad County typically lands around Jan 31, 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 Feb 21.
How long is the growing season in Goliad County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Goliad County sees about 313 frost-free days — roughly Jan 31 through Dec 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 21 to Nov 26, about 278 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Goliad County?
The federal record around Goliad County shows 62 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (37), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
Everything above is measured at Goliad County's scale — its 9a band and its 313-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Goliad 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 Goliad County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Goliad County's own scale — its own ~313-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 62 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Goliad County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Goliad County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~313-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Goliad CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 62 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
- Goliad County's boundary and the 545,287 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~313-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Goliad County spans, East Central Texas Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Goliad 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 Goliad County — the ~313 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 Goliad County's 545,287 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 62 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 Goliad Countyread your own land →