Gonzales County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
The conditions favor artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage, 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
Gonzales County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Gonzales 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 Gonzales County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Gonzales County — the short answer
Gonzales County, Texas: USDA zone 9a, about 306 days between hard freezes, across 683K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~306
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 683K 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 Gonzales County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Gonzales County's 306-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Gonzales County
Across a year, Gonzales County accumulates about 7,114 growing degree days above 50°F, about 1,290 more than the middle Texas county — ahead of 210 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 387 hours below 45°F, 708 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 Gonzales County
Across Gonzales County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Edge, Luling, and Rosanky are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.9–7.3, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
32%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Gonzales County
The USDA soil survey maps 63% of Gonzales County as well drained — but another 36% drains differently: 32% moderately well drained, 4% somewhat poorly drained.
Edge is the most extensive named soil at 10% of mapped acres, then Luling (5%) and Rosanky (5%).
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 Gonzales County
Each reading below is measured for Gonzales 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 Gonzales 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 Gonzales County runs about pH 5.9–7.3, 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
MeasuredGonzales County runs about 306 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
MeasuredGonzales 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 Gonzales County is in
Gonzales County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — East Central Texas Plains (90%) and Texas Blackland Prairies (10%). 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 Gonzales County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Gonzales County's own USDA zone 9a and its own 306-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 Gonzales 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 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 8 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the calendar nearly circles: cool-season crops take the winter shift, and the next window is always close.
Documented around Gonzales County
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Gonzales County
USGS estimates 23,550 lb of 2,4-d on Gonzales County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (16,885 lb) and Atrazine (6,438 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 Gonzales County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Gonzales County — 372 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 5 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
There's a meaningful federal record across Gonzales County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Gonzales County
Closest first, across Gonzales County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PIONEER OILCO 167Underground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- GOSS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- HARRELL CATTLEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- WARM SPRINGS REHAB HOSPITALUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- WARM SPRINGS REHABILITATION HOSPITALUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- PALMETTO STATE PARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- J-B FUEL STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- LAKEWOOD RECREATION AREAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- JP JONES OILUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- TOP-O-TOWN DRIVE IN GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- KACTUS KORRALUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- SHADY OAKS DRIVE IN GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Gonzales 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 Gonzales County.
Total Sites
372
across Gonzales County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
5 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Gonzales County
Severity Distribution
across Gonzales County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Gonzales County, two things run higher than the national average across Gonzales County — Nitrate (246 sites) and CAFO (8 sites). 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.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check your specific parcel in Gonzales 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 Gonzales County average
Your land is one point inside Gonzales County
Everything above resolves to Gonzales County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 683K 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 Gonzales County Average
Gonzales County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Gonzales County
- ●One soil character for all of Gonzales County
- ●Frost dates read at Gonzales County's scale: Feb 5 to Dec 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Gonzales County's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Gonzales County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Gonzales County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Gonzales County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Gonzales County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Gonzales County average
How we know this about Gonzales 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 Gonzales County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Gonzales County
When does frost risk typically end in Gonzales County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Gonzales County typically lands around Feb 5, 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 26.
How long is the growing season in Gonzales County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Gonzales County sees about 306 frost-free days — roughly Feb 5 through Dec 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 26 to Nov 24, about 271 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Gonzales County?
The federal record around Gonzales County is a meaningful one — 372 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (246), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
Everything above is measured at Gonzales County's scale — its 9a band and its 306-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Gonzales 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 Gonzales County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Gonzales County's own scale — its own ~306-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 372 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Gonzales County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Gonzales County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~306-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Gonzales CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 372 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Gonzales County's boundary and the 682,679 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~306-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Gonzales County spans, East Central Texas Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Gonzales County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Gonzales 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 Gonzales County — the ~306 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 Gonzales County's 682,679 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 372 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 Gonzales Countyread your own land →