Sabine County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Reliable performers under these conditions include artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Sabine County lies within the Piney Woods — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Sabine County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Sabine 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 Sabine County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Sabine County — the short answer
Sabine County, Texas: USDA zone 9a, about 292 days between hard freezes, across 315K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~292
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 315K 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 9a is Sabine County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Sabine County's 292-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Sabine County
Across a year, Sabine County accumulates about 6,035 growing degree days above 50°F, about 211 more than the middle Texas county — ahead of 155 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 759 hours below 45°F, 336 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 Sabine County
Across Sabine County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Moswell, Eastwood, and Cuthbert are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.3–5.8, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
22%
Hydric soils
6%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Sabine County
The USDA soil survey maps 50% of Sabine County as well drained — but another 35% drains differently: 21% moderately well drained, 12% somewhat poorly drained.
Moswell is the most extensive named soil at 20% of mapped acres, then Eastwood (9%) and Cuthbert (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 Sabine County
Each reading below is measured for Sabine 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 Sabine 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 Sabine County runs about pH 5.3–5.8, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredSabine County runs about 292 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
MeasuredSabine County sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a.
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 Sabine County is in
Sabine County sits in the South Central Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Sabine County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Sabine County's own USDA zone 9a and its own 292-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 Sabine County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 18; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 15 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 4 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
What gets applied to farmland in Sabine County
USGS estimates 2,818 lb of Atrazine on Sabine County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (2,058 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (1,556 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 Sabine County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Sabine County — 123 documented sites across 4 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Toxics Release Inventory facility. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Sabine 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 Sabine County
Closest first, across Sabine County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BROOKSHIRE BROTHERS 20Underground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- FAMILY DOLLAR #6571Brownfields · 1300 ft
- HEMPHILL ISDBrownfields · 1300 ft
- HEMPHILL ISDUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- F & M SALVAGE GROCERIESUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- FAT FREDS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- TERRILL PETROLEUMUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- LANES GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- HEMPHILL FUEL STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- SISSYS TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- FREDS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- COUNTRY KORNERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Sabine 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 Sabine County.
Total Sites
123
across Sabine County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
across Sabine County
Severity Distribution
across Sabine County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Sabine County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 91 sites across Sabine County. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Sabine 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 Sabine County average
Your land is one point inside Sabine County
Everything above resolves to Sabine County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 315K 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 Sabine County Average
Sabine County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Sabine County
- ●One soil character for all of Sabine County
- ●Frost dates read at Sabine County's scale: Feb 15 to Dec 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Sabine County's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Sabine County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Sabine County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Sabine County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Sabine County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Sabine County average
How we know this about Sabine 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 Sabine County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Sabine County
When does frost risk typically end in Sabine County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Sabine County typically lands around Feb 15, 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 8.
How long is the growing season in Sabine County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Sabine County sees about 292 frost-free days — roughly Feb 15 through Dec 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 8 to Nov 20, about 257 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Sabine County?
The federal record around Sabine County shows 123 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (91), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Sabine County's scale — its 9a band and its 292-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Sabine 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 Sabine County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Sabine County's own scale — its own ~292-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 123 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Sabine County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Sabine County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~292-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Sabine CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 123 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Sabine County's boundary and the 314,694 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~292-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Sabine County sitting wholly inside the South Central PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Sabine 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 Sabine County — the ~292 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 Sabine County's 314,694 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 123 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 Sabine Countyread your own land →