Schleicher County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Expect cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Schleicher County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Schleicher 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 Schleicher County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Schleicher County — the short answer
Schleicher County, Texas: USDA zone 8a, about 253 days between hard freezes, across 839K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~253
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 839K 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 Schleicher County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Schleicher County's 253-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Schleicher County
Across a year, Schleicher County accumulates about 5,455 growing degree days above 50°F, about 369 fewer than the middle Texas county — ahead of 62 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 1,281 hours below 45°F, 186 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 Schleicher County
Across Schleicher County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Tarrant, Tobosa, and Cho are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a very cobbly clay surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.6–8.0, slightly alkaline. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
20%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Schleicher County
Tarrant is the most extensive named soil at 40% of mapped acres, then Tobosa (12%) and Cho (9%).
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 Schleicher County
Each reading below is measured for Schleicher 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 Schleicher 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 Schleicher County runs about pH 7.6–8.0, 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
MeasuredSchleicher County runs about 253 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
MeasuredSchleicher 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 Schleicher County is in
Schleicher County sits in the Edwards Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Schleicher County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Schleicher County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 253-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 Schleicher County?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 12 (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 Schleicher County
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Schleicher County
USGS estimates 26,368 lb of Glyphosate on Schleicher County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Dicamba (8,186 lb) and 2,4-d (5,356 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 Schleicher County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Schleicher County — 30 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 Schleicher 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 Schleicher County
Closest first, across Schleicher County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- TXDOT ELDORADO FACILITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- BLANKUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- SCHLEICHER COUNTY ROAD DEPTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- ARCO OIL & GAS ELDORADO PROD OFFUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- HULLDALE PENN REEF LEASE UNITUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- 1 TANK LOCATED 12 MI W OF ELUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- PATTON FUEL & SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- ELDORADO GAS PROCESSING PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- HULLDALE GAS PROCESSING PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- GRIFFIN CHEVRONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- ELDORADO SHAMROCKUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- NIBLETTS OILFIELD SRVCSBrownfields · 3.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Schleicher 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 Schleicher County.
Total Sites
30
across Schleicher County
Risk Level
Low
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
across Schleicher County
Severity Distribution
across Schleicher County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Schleicher County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 21 sites across Schleicher County. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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 Schleicher 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 Schleicher County average
Your land is one point inside Schleicher County
Everything above resolves to Schleicher County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 839K 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 Schleicher County Average
Schleicher County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Schleicher County
- ●One soil character for all of Schleicher County
- ●Frost dates read at Schleicher County's scale: Mar 12 to Nov 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Schleicher County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Schleicher County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Schleicher County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Schleicher County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Schleicher County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Schleicher County average
How we know this about Schleicher 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 Schleicher County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Schleicher County
When does frost risk typically end in Schleicher County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Schleicher County typically lands around Mar 12, 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 2.
How long is the growing season in Schleicher County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Schleicher County sees about 253 frost-free days — roughly Mar 12 through Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 2 to Nov 6, about 218 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Schleicher County?
The federal record around Schleicher County is light — 30 documented sites across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (21), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 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 Schleicher County's scale — its 8a band and its 253-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Schleicher 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 Schleicher County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Schleicher County's own scale — its own ~253-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 30 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Schleicher County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Schleicher County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~253-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Schleicher CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 30 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Schleicher County's boundary and the 838,810 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~253-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Schleicher County sitting wholly inside the Edwards PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Schleicher County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Schleicher 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 Schleicher County — the ~253 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 Schleicher County's 838,810 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 30 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 Schleicher Countyread your own land →