Lockhart, 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.
Expect artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Lockhart, 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 Lockhart 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 Lockhart — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Lockhart — the short answer
Lockhart, Texas: USDA zone 9a, about 297 days between hard freezes, across 10K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 10
- Caldwell County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 4
- Caldwell County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~297
- Caldwell County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- City area
- 10K 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 Caldwell County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 9a is Lockhart's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lockhart's 297-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lockhart
Each reading below is measured for Lockhart itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsLockhart runs about 297 days between hard freezes (read from Caldwell County, the closest normal to Lockhart) — 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
MeasuredLockhart 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 Lockhart is in
Lockhart sits in the Texas Blackland Prairies — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Lockhart's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Caldwell County is mostly East Central Texas Plains. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Lockhart
Every plant below cleared Lockhart's own zone 9a and its 297-day season. Each card opens that plant's Texas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lockhart?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 4 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
Documented around Lockhart
Survey cells within 31 miles of Lockhart checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 614 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Lockhart
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lockhart. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CORNER FOOD MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- SIGMOR NO 507Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- CITY OF LOCKHARTPFAS · 0.6 mi
- GOFORTH SUDPFAS · 0.6 mi
- EMPTY LOTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- APPLEBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- HOLLAND SALES & SERVICE REPAIRUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- JUDI STIVERSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- LOCKHART OILUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- TERRELL T MCGEEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- HENRYS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- ANDREWARTHA FACILITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lockhart'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 Lockhart.
Total Sites
255
within ~10 miles of Lockhart
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lockhart
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lockhart
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lockhart, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Lockhart — Nitrate (166 sites) and PFAS (3 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Lockhart
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 Lockhart average
Your land is one point inside Lockhart
Everything above resolves to Lockhart as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 10K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Caldwell County’s record because no 30-year normal resolves at this city’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 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 Lockhart Average
Lockhart Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Lockhart
- ●One soil character for all of Lockhart
- ●Frost dates read at Lockhart's scale: Feb 10 to Dec 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lockhart's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lockhart
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lockhart, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lockhart averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lockhart — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lockhart average
How we know this about Lockhart
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 Caldwell 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 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 Lockhart
When does frost risk typically end in Lockhart?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lockhart typically lands around Feb 10, 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 3.
When is the first frost in Lockhart?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lockhart typically arrives around Dec 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 20, so the watching starts about Nov 4 — about 297 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lockhart?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lockhart sees about 297 frost-free days — roughly Feb 10 through Dec 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 3 to Nov 20, about 262 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lockhart?
The federal record around Lockhart is a meaningful one — 255 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (166), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Lockhart?
From about Nov 4 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 4 (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 4. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Lockhart's scale — its 9a band and its 297-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lockhart'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 Lockhart’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Lockhart's own scale — the 10,383 acres it covers and 255 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lockhart's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- 255 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lockhart, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lockhart's boundary and the 10,383 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~297-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Lockhart sits in the Texas Blackland Prairies — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Lockhart checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Lockhart has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Caldwell County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Lockhart's 10,383 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Caldwell County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Caldwell 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 Caldwell County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Lockhart's 10,383 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lockhart you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 10,383 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Lockhart-wide figureread your own land →
More in Texas
Wider growing context
What grows across TexasLockhart sits outside our named growing regions, so Texas as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides