Dalhart, Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, pawpaw, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Dalhart, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Dalhart lot. 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 Dalhart — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Dalhart — the short answer
Dalhart, Texas: USDA zone 7a, about 202 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~202
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 3K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 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 Dalhart's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Dalhart's 202-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Dalhart
Each reading below is measured for Dalhart itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDalhart runs about 202 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
MeasuredDalhart 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 Dalhart is in
Dalhart sits in the High Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Dalhart's own centroid rather than borrowed from Dallam County.
What Grows in Dalhart
Every plant below cleared Dalhart's own zone 7a and its 202-day season. Each card opens that plant's Texas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Dalhart?
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 Mar 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 28 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Dalhart
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Dalhart. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- TAYLOR FOOD MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- FRONTIER FUEL WAREHOUSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- DALHART ISD BUS BARNUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- EXPRESS LANE 2Underground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- ALLSUPS 47Underground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- CONOCO MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- THOMPSON WHOLESALE HARDWAREUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- BAILEY FLYING SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- CORNER STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- TOOT N TOTUM 103Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- GTSW DALHART CENTRAL OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- LATHAM LANDUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Dalhart'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 Dalhart.
Total Sites
63
within ~10 miles of Dalhart
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
5 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Dalhart
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Dalhart
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Dalhart, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Dalhart — CAFO (12 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (5 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Dalhart
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 Dalhart average
Your land is one point inside Dalhart
Everything above resolves to Dalhart as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 city 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 local average.
Your Lot vs the Dalhart Average
Dalhart Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Dalhart
- ●One soil character for all of Dalhart
- ●Frost dates read at Dalhart's scale: Apr 9 to Oct 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Dalhart's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Dalhart
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Dalhart, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Dalhart averages can't show:
We read public map data around Dalhart — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Dalhart average
How we know this about Dalhart
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Dalhart’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Dalhart
When does frost risk typically end in Dalhart?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Dalhart typically lands around Apr 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 Apr 30.
When is the first frost in Dalhart?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Dalhart typically arrives around Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 14, so the watching starts about Sep 28 — about 202 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Dalhart?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Dalhart sees about 202 frost-free days — roughly Apr 9 through Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 30 to Oct 14, about 167 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Dalhart?
The federal record around Dalhart shows 63 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (36), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Dalhart?
From about Sep 28 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Oct 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Oct 28. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Dalhart's scale — its 7a band and its 202-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Dalhart's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Dalhart’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Dalhart's own scale — its own ~202-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,060 acres it covers and 63 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Dalhart's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Dalhart's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 9 and Oct 28 and the ~202-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 63 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Dalhart, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Dalhart's boundary and the 3,060 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~202-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Dalhart's own centroid, the High PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Dalhart's 3,060 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Dallam County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Dallam County
- The growing challenges every Texas grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Texas
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Dallam County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Dalhart's 3,060 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Dalhart you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,060 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Dalhart-wide figureread your own land →