Hale Center, Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Growers here do well with cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Hale Center, 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 Hale Center 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 Hale Center — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Hale Center — the short answer
Hale Center, Texas: USDA zone 7b, about 227 days between hard freezes, across 920 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~227
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 920 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 7b is Hale Center's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Hale Center's 227-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Hale Center
Each reading below is measured for Hale Center itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHale Center runs about 227 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
MeasuredHale Center sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Hale Center is in
Hale Center sits in the High Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Hale Center's own centroid rather than borrowed from Hale County.
What Grows in Hale Center
Every plant below cleared Hale Center's own zone 7b and its 227-day season. Each card opens that plant's Texas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Hale Center?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 29 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 11 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
What's on the federal record near Hale Center
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Hale Center. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CRADDICK SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- FRIENDS 213Underground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- HALE CENTER ISDUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- FAMILY DOLLAR #10604Brownfields · 700 ft
- HEATH EUGENE OUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- HALE CENTER GIN FUELUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- HALE COUNTY PRECINCT 3Underground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- JAMES E LANEYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- HALE CENTER GASCARD 150310Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- WALLER GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- ALLSUPS 74Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- VARIEDADES T & MUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Hale Center'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 Hale Center.
Total Sites
110
within ~10 miles of Hale Center
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Hale Center
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Hale Center
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Hale Center, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Hale Center — CAFO (5 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (98 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Hale Center
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 Hale Center average
Your land is one point inside Hale Center
Everything above resolves to Hale Center as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 920 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 Hale Center Average
Hale Center Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Hale Center
- ●One soil character for all of Hale Center
- ●Frost dates read at Hale Center's scale: Mar 29 to Nov 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Hale Center's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Hale Center
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Hale Center, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Hale Center averages can't show:
We read public map data around Hale Center — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hale Center average
How we know this about Hale Center
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 Hale Center’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 Hale Center
When does frost risk typically end in Hale Center?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Hale Center typically lands around Mar 29, 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 19.
When is the first frost in Hale Center?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Hale Center typically arrives around Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 28, so the watching starts about Oct 12 — about 227 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Hale Center?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Hale Center sees about 227 frost-free days — roughly Mar 29 through Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 19 to Oct 28, about 192 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Hale Center?
The federal record around Hale Center shows 110 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (98), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Hale Center?
From about Oct 12 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 Nov 11 (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 Nov 11. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Hale Center's scale — its 7b band and its 227-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Hale Center'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 Hale Center’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Hale Center's own scale — its own ~227-day season between 28°F freezes, the 920 acres it covers and 110 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Hale Center's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Hale Center's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 29 and Nov 11 and the ~227-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 110 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Hale Center, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Hale Center's boundary and the 920 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~227-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Hale Center's own centroid, the High PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Hale Center's 920 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Hale County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Hale 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 Hale County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Hale Center's 920 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Hale Center you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 920 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles 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 Hale Center-wide figureread your own land →