Presidio 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.
Growers here do well with cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Presidio County lies within the Trans-Pecos / Big Bend — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Presidio County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Presidio 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 Presidio County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Presidio County — the short answer
Presidio County, Texas: USDA zone 8a, about 239 days between hard freezes, across 2.5M acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~239
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 2.5M 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 Presidio County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Presidio County's 239-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Presidio County
Across a year, Presidio County accumulates about 4,487 growing degree days above 50°F, about 1,337 fewer than the middle Texas county — ahead of 31 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 1,456 hours below 45°F, 361 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 Presidio County
Across Presidio County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Brewster, Corazones, and Murray are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a very gravelly loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.3–8.2, slightly alkaline. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Presidio County
The USDA soil survey maps 93% of Presidio County as well drained — but another 4% drains differently: 2% excessively drained, 1% moderately well drained.
Brewster is the most extensive named soil at 8% of mapped acres, then Corazones (8%) and Murray (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 Presidio County
Each reading below is measured for Presidio 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 Presidio 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 Presidio County runs about pH 7.3–8.2, 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
MeasuredPresidio County runs about 239 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
MeasuredPresidio 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 Presidio County is in
Presidio County sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Presidio County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Presidio County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 239-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 Presidio County?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 21 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 15 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Presidio County
- monarch butterfly3 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Presidio County
USGS estimates 7,833 lb of Dicamba on Presidio County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (6,293 lb) and Triclopyr (839 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 Presidio County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Presidio County — 109 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.
Presidio County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Presidio County
Closest first, across Presidio County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CITY OF MARFAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- HOWARD & WALKERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- TOMS TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- PRESIDIO AIR SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- MARFA TX VORUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- US BORDER PATROL STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- REDFORD HANDY PLACEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- PRESIDIO COUNTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- COVOS EXXON STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- GONZALES GROC & STAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- SANCHEZ SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- AGUILAR SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Presidio 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 Presidio County.
Total Sites
109
across Presidio County
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Severity Distribution
across Presidio County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Presidio County, Mining runs higher than the national average — 54 sites across Presidio County. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Presidio 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 Presidio County average
Your land is one point inside Presidio County
Everything above resolves to Presidio County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 2.5M 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 Presidio County Average
Presidio County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Presidio County
- ●One soil character for all of Presidio County
- ●Frost dates read at Presidio County's scale: Mar 21 to Nov 15
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Presidio County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Presidio County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Presidio County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Presidio County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Presidio County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Presidio County average
How we know this about Presidio 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 Presidio County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Presidio County
When does frost risk typically end in Presidio County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Presidio County typically lands around Mar 21, 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 Apr 11.
How long is the growing season in Presidio County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Presidio County sees about 239 frost-free days — roughly Mar 21 through Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 11 to Nov 1, about 204 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Presidio County?
The federal record around Presidio County runs heavier than most — 109 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (54), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.3 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
Everything above is measured at Presidio County's scale — its 8a band and its 239-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Presidio 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 Presidio County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Presidio County's own scale — its own ~239-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 109 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Presidio County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Presidio County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~239-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Presidio CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 109 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Presidio County's boundary and the 2,467,359 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~239-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Presidio County sitting wholly inside the Chihuahuan DesertsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Presidio County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Presidio 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 Presidio County — the ~239 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 Presidio County's 2,467,359 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 109 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 Presidio Countyread your own land →