O'Brien, Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Expect cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in O'Brien, 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 O'Brien 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 O'Brien — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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O'Brien — the short answer
O'Brien, Texas: USDA zone 8a, about 254 days between hard freezes, across 323 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~254
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 323 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 O'Brien's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against O'Brien's 254-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in O'Brien
Each reading below is measured for O'Brien itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredO'Brien runs about 254 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
MeasuredO'Brien 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 O'Brien is in
O'Brien sits in the Central Great Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at O'Brien's own centroid rather than borrowed from Haskell County.
What Grows in O'Brien
Every plant below cleared O'Brien's own zone 8a and its 254-day season. Each card opens that plant's Texas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in O'Brien?
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 Feb 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 12 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 21 — 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 O'Brien
Closest first, within ~10 miles of O'Brien. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- GOTHARD FINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 100 ft
- V L BRIDGES DBA BRIDGES OILUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- WAYNES 66 SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- SEVES 66 SERV STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- ALLSUPS 102Underground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- JC EATON & SONUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- SKILES BROTHERSUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- A P DENTONUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- PENMAN SERVICESUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- KNOX CITY OBRIEN CISDUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
- KNOX CITY HIGH SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
- JESSIES SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from O'Brien'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 O'Brien.
Total Sites
19
within ~10 miles of O'Brien
Risk Level
Low
Highest-severity
6 mining sites (prospects, none worked)
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of O'Brien
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Mine waste leaches heavy metals. Test for lead, arsenic and cadmium before growing food here.
Check your specific parcel in O'Brien
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 O'Brien average
Your land is one point inside O'Brien
Everything above resolves to O'Brien as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 323 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 O'Brien Average
O'Brien Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across O'Brien
- ●One soil character for all of O'Brien
- ●Frost dates read at O'Brien's scale: Mar 12 to Nov 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not O'Brien's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in O'Brien
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in O'Brien, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that O'Brien averages can't show:
We read public map data around O'Brien — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the O'Brien average
How we know this about O'Brien
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 O'Brien’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 O'Brien
When does frost risk typically end in O'Brien?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in O'Brien typically lands around Mar 12, 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 2.
When is the first frost in O'Brien?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in O'Brien typically arrives around Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 7, so the watching starts about Oct 22 — about 254 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in O'Brien?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, O'Brien sees about 254 frost-free days — roughly Mar 12 through Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 2 to Nov 7, about 219 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in O'Brien?
The federal record around O'Brien is light — 19 documented sites across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (13), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out — and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. Growing food here starts from a strong position; a soil test before new food beds settles any site-specific question.
How do I protect my plants from frost in O'Brien?
From about Oct 22 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 21 (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 21. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at O'Brien's scale — its 8a band and its 254-day season. Your yard writes its own version of O'Brien'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 O'Brien’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at O'Brien's own scale — its own ~254-day season between 28°F freezes, the 323 acres it covers and 19 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- O'Brien's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- O'Brien's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 12 and Nov 21 and the ~254-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 19 documented contamination sites on the federal record near O'Brien, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- O'Brien's boundary and the 323 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~254-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at O'Brien's own centroid, the Central Great PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so O'Brien's 323 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Haskell County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Haskell 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 Haskell County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among O'Brien's 323 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of O'Brien you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 323 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 O'Brien-wide figureread your own land →
More in Texas
Wider growing context
What grows across TexasO'Brien sits outside our named growing regions, so Texas as a whole is its closest context here.