Travis County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Among the crops suited to this profile: artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Travis County lies within the Blackland Prairie — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Travis County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Travis 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 Travis County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Travis County — the short answer
Travis County, Texas: USDA zone 9a, about 299 days between hard freezes, across 636K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~299
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 636K 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 Travis County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Travis County's 299-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Travis County
Across a year, Travis County accumulates about 6,794 growing degree days above 50°F, about 970 more than the middle Texas county — ahead of 199 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 625 hours below 45°F, 470 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 Travis County
Across Travis County, the ground is predominantly Vertisols, where Brackett, Houston Black, and Eckrant are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a clay surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.9–8.2, moderately alkaline. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Vertisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
20%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Travis County
The USDA soil survey maps 70% of Travis County as well drained — but another 26% drains differently: 25% moderately well drained.
Brackett is the most extensive named soil at 20% of mapped acres, then Houston Black (20%) and Eckrant (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 Travis County
Each reading below is measured for Travis 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 Travis 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 Travis 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
MeasuredTravis County runs about 299 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
MeasuredTravis 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 Travis County is in
Travis County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Edwards Plateau (50%) and Texas Blackland Prairies (48%). 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 Travis County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Travis County's own USDA zone 9a and its own 299-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 Travis County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 5 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. And with a calendar this mild, the honest answer is that planting barely stops — winter opens seasons colder regions never see.
Documented around Travis County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Travis County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 613 miles off. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly1,774 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Travis County
USGS estimates 44,866 lb of Glyphosate on Travis County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (21,439 lb) and 2,4-d (13,916 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 Travis County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Travis County — 2,218 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Travis 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 Travis County
Closest first, across Travis County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- EVERYDAY STOP TXDOT ROW PARCEL 22Underground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- IDEAL MOTORSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- NEURALINK CORPBrownfields · 1400 ft
- SHOPPERS MART 3Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- CALLAHANS GENERAL STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- B R CAPPS TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- PATHMARK 34Underground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- VARGAS FOOD STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- METRO ACCESS CAPITAL METROUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- AUSTIN EVERGREEN 385 CO XP3629Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- R & B MOTORSBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- LIMONS ROAD SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Travis 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 Travis County.
Total Sites
2,218
across Travis County
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Travis County
Severity Distribution
across Travis County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Travis County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 1,562 sites across Travis 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 Travis 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 Travis County average
Your land is one point inside Travis County
Everything above resolves to Travis County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 636K 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 Travis County Average
Travis County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Travis County
- ●One soil character for all of Travis County
- ●Frost dates read at Travis County's scale: Feb 9 to Dec 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Travis County's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Travis County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Travis County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Travis County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Travis County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Travis County average
How we know this about Travis 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 Travis County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Travis County
When does frost risk typically end in Travis County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Travis County typically lands around Feb 9, 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 2.
How long is the growing season in Travis County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Travis County sees about 299 frost-free days — roughly Feb 9 through Dec 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 2 to Nov 21, about 264 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Travis County?
The federal record around Travis County runs heavier than most — 2,218 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,562), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Travis County's scale — its 9a band and its 299-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Travis 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 Travis County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Travis County's own scale — its own ~299-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 2,218 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Travis County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Travis County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~299-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Travis CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 2,218 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
- Travis County's boundary and the 636,370 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~299-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Travis County spans, Edwards Plateau the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Travis County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Travis 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 Travis County — the ~299 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 Travis County's 636,370 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 2,218 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 Travis Countyread your own land →