Valentine, Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Valentine, 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 Valentine 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 Valentine — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Valentine — the short answer
Valentine, Texas: USDA zone 8a, about 239 days between hard freezes, across 311 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~239
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 311 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 Valentine's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Valentine's 239-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Valentine
Each reading below is measured for Valentine itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredValentine runs about 239 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
MeasuredValentine 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 Valentine is in
Valentine sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Valentine's own centroid rather than borrowed from Jeff Davis County.
What Grows in Valentine
Every plant below cleared Valentine's own zone 8a and its 239-day season. Each card opens that plant's Texas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Valentine?
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 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 21 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 15 — 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 Valentine
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Valentine. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PRIME TIME FOOD STORE 101Underground Storage Tanks · 5.5 mi
Measured from Valentine'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 Valentine.
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Valentine
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
Check your specific parcel in Valentine
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 Valentine average
Your land is one point inside Valentine
Everything above resolves to Valentine as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 311 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 Valentine Average
Valentine Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Valentine
- ●One soil character for all of Valentine
- ●Frost dates read at Valentine's scale: Mar 21 to Nov 15
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Valentine's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Valentine
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Valentine, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Valentine averages can't show:
We read public map data around Valentine — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Valentine average
How we know this about Valentine
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 Valentine’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 Valentine
When does frost risk typically end in Valentine?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Valentine typically lands around Mar 21, 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 11.
When is the first frost in Valentine?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Valentine typically arrives around Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 1, so the watching starts about Oct 16 — about 239 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Valentine?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Valentine sees about 239 frost-free days — roughly Mar 21 through Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 11 to Nov 1, about 204 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Valentine?
The federal record around Valentine is light — 1 documented site across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 5.5 miles 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 Valentine?
From about Oct 16 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 15 (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 15. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Valentine's scale — its 8a band and its 239-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Valentine'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 Valentine’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Valentine's own scale — its own ~239-day season between 28°F freezes, the 311 acres it covers and 1 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Valentine's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Valentine's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 21 and Nov 15 and the ~239-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Valentine, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 5.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Valentine's boundary and the 311 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~239-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Valentine's own centroid, the Chihuahuan DesertsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Valentine's 311 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Jeff Davis County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Jeff Davis 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 Jeff Davis County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Valentine's 311 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Valentine you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 311 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 5.5 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 Valentine-wide figureread your own land →
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