McKinney Acres, Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in McKinney Acres, 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 McKinney Acres 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 McKinney Acres — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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McKinney Acres — the short answer
McKinney Acres, Texas: USDA zone 8a, about 255 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~255
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 8a is McKinney Acres's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against McKinney Acres's 255-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in McKinney Acres
Each reading below is measured for McKinney Acres itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMcKinney Acres runs about 255 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
MeasuredMcKinney Acres sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
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 McKinney Acres is in
McKinney Acres sits in the High Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at McKinney Acres's own centroid rather than borrowed from Andrews County.
What Grows in McKinney Acres
Every plant below cleared McKinney Acres's own zone 8a and its 255-day season. Each card opens that plant's Texas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in McKinney Acres?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 19 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
What's on the federal record near McKinney Acres
Closest first, within ~10 miles of McKinney Acres. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BP PIPELINES ANDREWS ICT TRUCKYARDBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- BJ CHEMICAL SERVICESToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- BAKER PETROLITEBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- LOVES TRAVEL STOP 539Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- STRIPES 281Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- COATS CONSTRUCTIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- WEST TEXAS GASUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- EZ MART 4452Underground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- EZ MART 352Underground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- 411 NW MAIN STUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- SUN OIL CO UNIVERSITY NBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- REYNOLDS SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from McKinney Acres'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 McKinney Acres.
Total Sites
129
within ~10 miles of McKinney Acres
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of McKinney Acres
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of McKinney Acres
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around McKinney Acres, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 91 sites within ~10 miles of McKinney Acres. 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 McKinney Acres
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 McKinney Acres average
Your land is one point inside McKinney Acres
Everything above resolves to McKinney Acres as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 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 McKinney Acres Average
McKinney Acres Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across McKinney Acres
- ●One soil character for all of McKinney Acres
- ●Frost dates read at McKinney Acres's scale: Mar 9 to Nov 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not McKinney Acres's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in McKinney Acres
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in McKinney Acres, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that McKinney Acres averages can't show:
We read public map data around McKinney Acres — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the McKinney Acres average
How we know this about McKinney Acres
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 McKinney Acres’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 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 McKinney Acres
When does frost risk typically end in McKinney Acres?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in McKinney Acres typically lands around Mar 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 30.
When is the first frost in McKinney Acres?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in McKinney Acres typically arrives around Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 5, so the watching starts about Oct 20 — about 255 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in McKinney Acres?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, McKinney Acres sees about 255 frost-free days — roughly Mar 9 through Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 30 to Nov 5, about 220 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in McKinney Acres?
The federal record around McKinney Acres shows 129 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (91), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.5 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 McKinney Acres?
From about Oct 20 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 19 (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 19. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at McKinney Acres's scale — its 8a band and its 255-day season. Your yard writes its own version of McKinney Acres'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 McKinney Acres’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at McKinney Acres's own scale — its own ~255-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,053 acres it covers and 129 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- McKinney Acres's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- McKinney Acres's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 9 and Nov 19 and the ~255-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 129 documented contamination sites on the federal record near McKinney Acres, the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- McKinney Acres's boundary and the 1,053 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~255-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at McKinney Acres's own centroid, the High PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so McKinney Acres's 1,053 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Andrews County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Andrews 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 Andrews County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among McKinney Acres's 1,053 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of McKinney Acres you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,053 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 McKinney Acres-wide figureread your own land →