San Patricio County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
These conditions suit okra, meyer lemon, california poppy, and artichoke — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
San Patricio County lies within the Coastal Bend — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
San Patricio County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across San Patricio 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 San Patricio County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
San Patricio County — the short answer
San Patricio County, Texas: USDA zone 9b, about 322 days between hard freezes, across 444K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jan 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~322
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 444K 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 9b is San Patricio County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against San Patricio County's 322-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in San Patricio County
Across a year, San Patricio County accumulates about 7,976 growing degree days above 50°F, about 2,152 more than the middle Texas county — ahead of 238 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 0 hours below 45°F, 1,095 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 San Patricio County
Across San Patricio County, the ground is predominantly Vertisols, where Victoria, Calallen, and Raymondville are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a clay surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.6–8.1, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Vertisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
59%
Hydric soils
10%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across San Patricio County
The USDA soil survey maps 56% of San Patricio County as well drained — but another 41% drains differently: 28% moderately well drained, 9% poorly drained.
Victoria is the most extensive named soil at 38% of mapped acres, then Calallen (13%) and Raymondville (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 San Patricio County
Each reading below is measured for San Patricio 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 San Patricio 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 San Patricio County runs about pH 6.6–8.1, 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
MeasuredSan Patricio County runs about 322 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
MeasuredSan Patricio County sits in USDA hardiness zone 9b.
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 San Patricio County is in
San Patricio County sits in the Western Gulf Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in San Patricio County
We scored all 1,086 plants against San Patricio County's own USDA zone 9b and its own 322-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 San Patricio County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Jan 24 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 12 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the calendar nearly circles: cool-season crops take the winter shift, and the next window is always close.
Documented around San Patricio County
- monarch butterfly11 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in San Patricio County
USGS estimates 634,334 lb of Glyphosate on San Patricio County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (250,244 lb) and Metolachlor-s (236,816 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 San Patricio County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across San Patricio County — 444 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 3 Superfund sites. 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 San Patricio 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 San Patricio County
Closest first, across San Patricio County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CRESCENT SHOPPING CTRUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- WELDER GAS PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- TEXAS EASTERN TRANSMISSIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- SAN PATRICIO COUNTY AIRPORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- CORPUS CHANNEL NW PLANT COMPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- GREGORY SERV STATUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- ODEM EDROY ISDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- COMPRESSOR STATION 802Underground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- WEBB & BICKHAM FARMSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- LAZY ARCESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- PARKSIDE DRIVE INNUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from San Patricio 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 San Patricio County.
Sources Checked
across San Patricio County
Severity Distribution
across San Patricio County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around San Patricio County, PFAS runs higher than the national average — 7 sites across San Patricio County. 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.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in San Patricio 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 San Patricio County average
Your land is one point inside San Patricio County
Everything above resolves to San Patricio County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 444K 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 San Patricio County Average
San Patricio County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9b, averaged across San Patricio County
- ●One soil character for all of San Patricio County
- ●Frost dates read at San Patricio County's scale: Jan 24 to Dec 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not San Patricio County's 9b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in San Patricio County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in San Patricio County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that San Patricio County averages can't show:
We read public map data around San Patricio County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the San Patricio County average
How we know this about San Patricio 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 San Patricio County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about San Patricio County
When does frost risk typically end in San Patricio County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in San Patricio County typically lands around Jan 24, 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 Feb 14.
How long is the growing season in San Patricio County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, San Patricio County sees about 322 frost-free days — roughly Jan 24 through Dec 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 14 to Nov 28, about 287 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in San Patricio County?
The federal record around San Patricio County is a meaningful one — 444 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (258), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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 San Patricio County's scale — its 9b band and its 322-day season. Your yard writes its own version of San Patricio 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 San Patricio County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at San Patricio County's own scale — its own ~322-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 444 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- San Patricio County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9bUSDA PHZM 2023
- San Patricio County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~322-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in San Patricio CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 444 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
- San Patricio County's boundary and the 443,724 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9b and a ~322-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- San Patricio County sitting wholly inside the Western Gulf Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in San Patricio County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto San Patricio 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 San Patricio County — the ~322 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 San Patricio County's 443,724 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 444 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 San Patricio Countyread your own land →