Roberts County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Roberts County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Roberts 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 Roberts County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Roberts County — the short answer
Roberts County, Texas: USDA zone 7a, about 217 days between hard freezes, across 591K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~217
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 591K 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 7a is Roberts County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Roberts County's 217-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Roberts County
Across a year, Roberts County accumulates about 4,225 growing degree days above 50°F, about 1,599 fewer than the middle Texas county — ahead of 20 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 2,298 hours below 45°F, 1,203 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 Roberts County
Across Roberts County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Mobeetie, Pep, and Potter are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a clay loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.9–8.2, moderately alkaline. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
14%
Hydric soils
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Roberts County
The USDA soil survey maps 83% of Roberts County as well drained — but another 17% drains differently: 13% somewhat excessively drained, 3% excessively drained.
Mobeetie is the most extensive named soil at 16% of mapped acres, then Pep (12%) and Potter (12%).
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 Roberts County
Each reading below is measured for Roberts 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 Roberts County are well drained, in hydrologic group B — 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 Roberts County runs about pH 7.9–8.2, 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
MeasuredRoberts County runs about 217 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
MeasuredRoberts County sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Roberts County is in
Roberts County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Southwestern Tablelands (86%) and High Plains (14%). 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 Roberts County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Roberts County's own USDA zone 7a and its own 217-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 Roberts 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 Mar 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 31 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 3 — 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 Roberts County
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Roberts County
USGS estimates 8,997 lb of Glyphosate on Roberts County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (8,615 lb) and Dicamba (3,412 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 Roberts County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Roberts County — 20 documented sites across 3 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 3 brownfield sites. Former commercial or industrial land where legacy contamination may persist.
The federal record across Roberts 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 Roberts County
Closest first, across Roberts County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- STRIBS FEED & SUPPLYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- FARMUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- ANR PIPELINE MIAMI OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- NATURAL GAS PIPELINE STA 149Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- CLARK LAND & CATTLEUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.2 mi
- WS-05-18-151Nitrate · 8.6 mi
- WJ-06-24-305Nitrate · 12.0 mi
- VERNON H COOKUnderground Storage Tanks · 14.4 mi
- TXDOT MAINTENANCE FACILITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 14.5 mi
- BAILEY OIL PRODUCTSUnderground Storage Tanks · 15.0 mi
- BILLY BRITTONUnderground Storage Tanks · 15.0 mi
- CENTURY FUELS 2Underground Storage Tanks · 15.0 mi
5 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Roberts 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 Roberts County.
Severity Distribution
across Roberts County
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
Check your specific parcel in Roberts 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 Roberts County average
Your land is one point inside Roberts County
Everything above resolves to Roberts County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 591K 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 Roberts County Average
Roberts County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Roberts County
- ●One soil character for all of Roberts County
- ●Frost dates read at Roberts County's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Roberts County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Roberts County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Roberts County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Roberts County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Roberts County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Roberts County average
How we know this about Roberts 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 Roberts County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Roberts County
When does frost risk typically end in Roberts County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Roberts County typically lands around Mar 31, 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 21.
How long is the growing season in Roberts County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Roberts County sees about 217 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 20, about 182 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Roberts County?
The federal record around Roberts County is light — 20 documented sites across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (13), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.3 miles 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 Roberts County's scale — its 7a band and its 217-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Roberts 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 Roberts County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Roberts County's own scale — its own ~217-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 20 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Roberts County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Roberts County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~217-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Roberts CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 20 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
- Roberts County's boundary and the 591,396 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~217-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Roberts County spans, Southwestern Tablelands the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Roberts County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Roberts 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 Roberts County — the ~217 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 Roberts County's 591,396 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 20 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 Roberts Countyread your own land →