Mills County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
These conditions suit cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Mills County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Mills 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 Mills County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Mills County — the short answer
Mills County, Texas: USDA zone 8b, about 273 days between hard freezes, across 479K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~273
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 479K 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 Mills County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Mills County's 273-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Mills County
Across a year, Mills County accumulates about 5,792 growing degree days above 50°F, about 32 fewer than the middle Texas county — ahead of 120 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 997 hours below 45°F, 98 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 Mills County
Across Mills County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Bolar, Tarrant, and Tarpley are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a clay loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.5–8.2, slightly alkaline. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
14%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Mills County
Bolar is the most extensive named soil at 15% of mapped acres, then Tarrant (12%) and Tarpley (9%).
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 Mills County
Each reading below is measured for Mills 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 Mills 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 Mills County runs about pH 7.5–8.2, 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
MeasuredMills County runs about 273 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
MeasuredMills 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 Mills County is in
Mills County sits in the Cross Timbers — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Mills County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Mills County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 273-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 Mills 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 29; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 26 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. And with a calendar this mild, the honest answer is that planting barely stops — winter opens seasons colder regions never see.
Documented around Mills County
- monarch butterfly4 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Mills County
USGS estimates 12,790 lb of 2,4-d on Mills County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (5,176 lb) and Chlorpyrifos (2,508 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 Mills County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Mills County — 38 documented sites across 3 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 5 concentrated animal feeding operations. Large-scale animal operations that can contaminate soil and groundwater with nitrates and pathogens.
The federal record across Mills 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 Mills County
Closest first, across Mills County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MILLER CONOCO STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- DURNVILLEUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- ELEANOR GROMATZKYUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- STEVE GIST MOTORUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- NANCE EXXONUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- W D HENRY MAINTENANCE SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- BOSSE GROCERY & STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- TODDY HOUSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- AT&SF RAILWAYUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- GOLDTHWAITE TOOL HOUSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- STEGEMOLLER GROCUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- 4M MINI-MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Mills 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 Mills County.
Total Sites
38
across Mills County
Risk Level
Low
Highest-severity
5 concentrated animal feeding operations
Sources Checked
across Mills County
Severity Distribution
across Mills County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Mills County, two things run higher than the national average across Mills County — CAFO (5 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (32 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Mills 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 Mills County average
Your land is one point inside Mills County
Everything above resolves to Mills County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 479K 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 Mills County Average
Mills County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Mills County
- ●One soil character for all of Mills County
- ●Frost dates read at Mills County's scale: Feb 26 to Nov 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Mills County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Mills County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Mills County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Mills County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Mills County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mills County average
How we know this about Mills 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 Mills County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Mills County
When does frost risk typically end in Mills County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Mills County typically lands around Feb 26, 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 19.
How long is the growing season in Mills County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Mills County sees about 273 frost-free days — roughly Feb 26 through Nov 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 19 to Nov 12, about 238 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Mills County?
The federal record around Mills County is light — 38 documented sites across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (32), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Mills County's scale — its 8b band and its 273-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Mills 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 Mills County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Mills County's own scale — its own ~273-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 38 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Mills County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Mills County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~273-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Mills CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 38 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile outFederal environmental registers
- Mills County's boundary and the 478,863 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~273-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Mills County sitting wholly inside the Cross TimbersUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Mills County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Mills 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 Mills County — the ~273 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 Mills County's 478,863 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 38 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 Mills Countyread your own land →