Medina County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
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
Medina County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Medina 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 Medina County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Medina County — the short answer
Medina County, Texas: USDA zone 9a, about 299 days between hard freezes, across 848K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~299
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 848K 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 Medina County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Medina County's 299-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Medina County
Across a year, Medina County accumulates about 7,085 growing degree days above 50°F, about 1,261 more than the middle Texas county — ahead of 209 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 540 hours below 45°F, 555 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 Medina County
Across Medina County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Eckrant, Knippa, and Castroville are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a clay surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.0–8.2, slightly alkaline. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
21%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Medina County
The USDA soil survey maps 80% of Medina County as well drained — but another 17% drains differently: 14% moderately well drained, 4% somewhat poorly drained.
Eckrant is the most extensive named soil at 10% of mapped acres, then Knippa (8%) and Castroville (6%).
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 Medina County
Each reading below is measured for Medina 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 Medina 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 Medina County runs about pH 7.0–8.2, 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
MeasuredMedina County runs about 299 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
MeasuredMedina 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 Medina County is in
Medina County spans 3 EPA Level III ecoregions — Southern Texas Plains (70%), Edwards Plateau (23%) and Texas Blackland Prairies (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 Medina County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Medina County's own USDA zone 9a and its own 299-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 Medina County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 6 — 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.
Documented around Medina County
- monarch butterfly55 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Medina County
USGS estimates 101,930 lb of Glyphosate on Medina County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (41,039 lb) and Atrazine (32,706 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 Medina County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Medina County — 428 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Medina 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 Medina County
Closest first, across Medina County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- JUANITASUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- BICO OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- TEE PEEUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- RICHTERS STOP & SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- MEDINA VALLEY ISDUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- PIONEER OILCO 79Underground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- DHANIS PROVING GROUNDSUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- PERMIANUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- DHANIS ICE STAUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- RIO MEDINA RADIO RELAY STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- SPTCO WORK CAMPUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- VALLEY MART 5Underground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Medina 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 Medina County.
Total Sites
428
across Medina County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Medina County
Severity Distribution
across Medina County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Medina County, two things run higher than the national average across Medina County — Nitrate (262 sites) and PFAS (4 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.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Medina 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 Medina County average
Your land is one point inside Medina County
Everything above resolves to Medina County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 848K 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 Medina County Average
Medina County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Medina County
- ●One soil character for all of Medina County
- ●Frost dates read at Medina County's scale: Feb 10 to Dec 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Medina County's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Medina County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Medina County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Medina County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Medina County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Medina County average
How we know this about Medina 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 Medina County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Medina County
When does frost risk typically end in Medina County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Medina County typically lands around Feb 10, 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 3.
How long is the growing season in Medina County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Medina County sees about 299 frost-free days — roughly Feb 10 through Dec 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 3 to Nov 22, about 264 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Medina County?
The federal record around Medina County is a meaningful one — 428 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (262), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Medina County's scale — its 9a band and its 299-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Medina 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 Medina County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Medina County's own scale — its own ~299-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 428 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Medina County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Medina County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~299-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Medina CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 428 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
- Medina County's boundary and the 848,233 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~299-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 3 ecoregions Medina County spans, Southern Texas Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Medina County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Medina 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 Medina County — the ~299 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 Medina County's 848,233 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 428 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 Medina Countyread your own land →