Montague County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Expect cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens 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
Montague County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Montague 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 Montague County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Montague County — the short answer
Montague County, Texas: USDA zone 8a, about 259 days between hard freezes, across 596K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~259
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 596K 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 Montague County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Montague County's 259-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Montague County
Across a year, Montague County accumulates about 5,331 growing degree days above 50°F, about 493 fewer than the middle Texas county — ahead of 48 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 1,452 hours below 45°F, 357 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 Montague County
Across Montague County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Windthorst, Duffau, and Renfrow are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.2–7.3, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
31%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Montague County
The USDA soil survey maps 69% of Montague County as well drained — but another 30% drains differently: 27% moderately well drained, 2% somewhat poorly drained.
Windthorst is the most extensive named soil at 19% of mapped acres, then Duffau (12%) and Renfrow (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 Montague County
Each reading below is measured for Montague 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 Montague 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 Montague County runs about pH 6.2–7.3, 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
MeasuredMontague County runs about 259 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
MeasuredMontague 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 Montague County is in
Montague County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Cross Timbers (68%) and Central Great Plains (32%). 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 Montague County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Montague County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 259-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 Montague 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 Feb 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 8 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 22 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
What gets applied to farmland in Montague County
USGS estimates 11,552 lb of 2,4-d on Montague County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (2,497 lb) and Chlorpyrifos (1,405 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 Montague County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Montague County — 155 documented sites across 8 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 Montague 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 Montague County
Closest first, across Montague County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Pevler Spring-1,2,3Mining · 1100 ft
- BRAZOS ELECTRIC POWER COOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- ST JO SERVICE STATION SITE 2Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- FORESTBURG SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- ERNEST B WHATLEYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- GEORGE DEEN CATTLEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- ROMINES TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- JIMMY SADLERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- BONHAM WILLIAM RUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- OGLE DOZER SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- BURLINGTON NORTHERN RAILROADUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- BROWNSVILLE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Montague 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 Montague County.
Total Sites
155
across Montague County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Severity Distribution
across Montague County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Montague County, two things run higher than the national average across Montague County — PFAS (3 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (119 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Montague 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 Montague County average
Your land is one point inside Montague County
Everything above resolves to Montague County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 596K 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 Montague County Average
Montague County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Montague County
- ●One soil character for all of Montague County
- ●Frost dates read at Montague County's scale: Mar 8 to Nov 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Montague County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Montague County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Montague County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Montague County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Montague County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Montague County average
How we know this about Montague 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 Montague County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Montague County
When does frost risk typically end in Montague County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Montague County typically lands around Mar 8, 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 29.
How long is the growing season in Montague County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Montague County sees about 259 frost-free days — roughly Mar 8 through Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 29 to Nov 8, about 224 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Montague County?
The federal record around Montague County is a meaningful one — 155 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (119), the nearest Mining record about 0.2 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 Montague County's scale — its 8a band and its 259-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Montague 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 Montague County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Montague County's own scale — its own ~259-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 155 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Montague County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Montague County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~259-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Montague CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 155 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Mining record about 0.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Montague County's boundary and the 595,779 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~259-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Montague County spans, Cross Timbers the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Montague 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 Montague County — the ~259 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 Montague County's 595,779 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 155 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 Montague Countyread your own land →