Nolan County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Nolan County lies within the Rolling Plains — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Nolan County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Nolan 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 Nolan County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Nolan County — the short answer
Nolan County, Texas: USDA zone 8a, about 256 days between hard freezes, across 584K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~256
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 584K 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 Nolan County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Nolan County's 256-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Nolan County
Across a year, Nolan County accumulates about 5,373 growing degree days above 50°F, about 451 fewer than the middle Texas county — ahead of 53 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 1,424 hours below 45°F, 329 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 Nolan County
Across Nolan County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Oplin, Pyron, and Dermott are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a very gravelly clay loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.8–8.2, moderately alkaline. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
32%
Hydric soils
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Nolan County
The USDA soil survey maps 98% of Nolan County as well drained — but another 2% drains differently: 2% moderately well drained, 1% poorly drained.
Oplin is the most extensive named soil at 29% of mapped acres, then Pyron (11%) and Dermott (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 Nolan County
Each reading below is measured for Nolan 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 Nolan 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 Nolan County runs about pH 7.8–8.2, 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
MeasuredNolan County runs about 256 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
MeasuredNolan 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 Nolan County is in
Nolan County spans 3 EPA Level III ecoregions — Edwards Plateau (63%), Central Great Plains (21%) and Southwestern Tablelands (17%). 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 Nolan County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Nolan County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 256-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 Nolan County?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 20 — 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.
Documented around Nolan County
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Nolan County
USGS estimates 107,891 lb of Glyphosate on Nolan County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Dicamba (25,345 lb) and 2,4-d (21,265 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 Nolan County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Nolan County — 161 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 9 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Nolan 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 Nolan County
Closest first, across Nolan County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ROSCOE FARM CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- ROSCOE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- JIM COLVIN PONT OLDS GMCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- AT&T PYRON REPEATER HUTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- HAROLD HAYNESUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- LONE STAR INDUSTRIESUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- T & R CONSTRUCTIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- ARROW WRECKINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- FARRIS THOMPSON CONSTRUCTIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- NOLAN COUNTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- BSF 20Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Nolan 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 Nolan County.
Total Sites
161
across Nolan County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
9 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Nolan County
Severity Distribution
across Nolan County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Nolan County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 128 sites across Nolan County. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Nolan 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 Nolan County average
Your land is one point inside Nolan County
Everything above resolves to Nolan County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 584K 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 Nolan County Average
Nolan County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Nolan County
- ●One soil character for all of Nolan County
- ●Frost dates read at Nolan County's scale: Mar 9 to Nov 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Nolan County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Nolan County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Nolan County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Nolan County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Nolan County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Nolan County average
How we know this about Nolan 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 Nolan County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Nolan County
When does frost risk typically end in Nolan County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Nolan County typically lands around Mar 9, 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 30.
How long is the growing season in Nolan County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Nolan County sees about 256 frost-free days — roughly Mar 9 through Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 30 to Nov 6, about 221 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Nolan County?
The federal record around Nolan County shows 161 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (128), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.9 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 Nolan County's scale — its 8a band and its 256-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Nolan 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 Nolan County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Nolan County's own scale — its own ~256-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 161 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Nolan County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Nolan County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~256-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Nolan CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 161 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.9 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Nolan County's boundary and the 583,676 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~256-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 3 ecoregions Nolan County spans, Edwards Plateau the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Nolan County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Nolan 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 Nolan County — the ~256 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 Nolan County's 583,676 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 161 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 Nolan Countyread your own land →