Holiday Beach, Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Growers here do well with okra, meyer lemon, california poppy, and artichoke — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Holiday Beach, 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 Holiday Beach 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 Holiday Beach — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Holiday Beach — the short answer
Holiday Beach, Texas: USDA zone 9b, about 332 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 9b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jan 25
- Aransas County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 23
- Aransas County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~332
- Aransas County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Town area
- 1K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. No 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid, so the hard-freeze dates are Aransas County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 9b is Holiday Beach's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Holiday Beach's 332-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Holiday Beach
Each reading below is measured for Holiday Beach itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsHoliday Beach runs about 332 days between hard freezes (read from Aransas County, the closest normal to Holiday Beach) — 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
MeasuredHoliday Beach 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 Holiday Beach is in
Holiday Beach sits in the Western Gulf Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Holiday Beach's own centroid rather than borrowed from Aransas County.
What Grows in Holiday Beach
Every plant below cleared Holiday Beach's own zone 9b and its 332-day season. Each card opens that plant's Texas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Holiday Beach?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. 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 25 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 23 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Holiday Beach
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Holiday Beach. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- LOVELY SUPERMARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- AH-80-49-708Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- AH-80-49-7xxNitrate · 0.9 mi
- CVS PHARMACY #10926Brownfields · 1.4 mi
- AH-79-56-901Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- 7-ELEVEN STORE 36506Underground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- AH-79-64-307Nitrate · 4.0 mi
- AH-80-49-802Nitrate · 4.1 mi
- CITY OF ROCKPORTPFAS · 4.4 mi
- AH-79-64-304Nitrate · 4.8 mi
- AH-79-64-305Nitrate · 5.0 mi
- AH-79-64-301Nitrate · 5.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Holiday Beach'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 Holiday Beach.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Holiday Beach
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Holiday Beach
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Holiday Beach, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 28 sites within ~10 miles of Holiday Beach. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Holiday Beach
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 Holiday Beach average
Your land is one point inside Holiday Beach
Everything above resolves to Holiday Beach as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 1K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Aransas County’s record because no 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid. 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 town 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 Holiday Beach Average
Holiday Beach Average
- ●USDA Zones 9b, averaged across Holiday Beach
- ●One soil character for all of Holiday Beach
- ●Frost dates read at Holiday Beach's scale: Jan 25 to Dec 23
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Holiday Beach's 9b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Holiday Beach
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Holiday Beach, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Holiday Beach averages can't show:
We read public map data around Holiday Beach — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Holiday Beach average
How we know this about Holiday Beach
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Aransas County’s record, because none resolves here; 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 town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-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 Holiday Beach
When does frost risk typically end in Holiday Beach?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Holiday Beach typically lands around Jan 25, 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 15.
When is the first frost in Holiday Beach?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Holiday Beach typically arrives around Dec 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Dec 9, so the watching starts about Nov 23 — about 332 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Holiday Beach?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Holiday Beach sees about 332 frost-free days — roughly Jan 25 through Dec 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 15 to Dec 9, about 297 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Holiday Beach?
The federal record around Holiday Beach shows 73 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (42), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 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 Holiday Beach?
From about Nov 23 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 Dec 23 (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 Dec 23. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Holiday Beach's scale — its 9b band and its 332-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Holiday Beach'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 Holiday Beach’s own scale
5 of the readings below were taken at Holiday Beach's own scale — the 1,031 acres it covers and 73 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Holiday Beach's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9bUSDA PHZM 2023
- 73 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Holiday Beach, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Holiday Beach's boundary and the 1,031 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9b and a ~332-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Holiday Beach's own centroid, the Western Gulf Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Holiday Beach has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Aransas County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Holiday Beach's 1,031 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Aransas County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Aransas 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 Aransas County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Holiday Beach's 1,031 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Holiday Beach you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,031 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 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 Holiday Beach-wide figureread your own land →
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