Covenant Life, Alaska, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Covenant Life, 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 Covenant Life 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 Covenant Life — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Covenant Life — the short answer
Covenant Life, Alaska: USDA zone 5b, about 195 days between hard freezes, across 17K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 14
- Haines Borough normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 26
- Haines Borough normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~195
- Haines Borough normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Town area
- 17K 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 Haines Borough’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 5b is Covenant Life's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Covenant Life's 195-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Covenant Life
Each reading below is measured for Covenant Life itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsCovenant Life runs about 195 days between hard freezes (read from Haines Borough, the closest normal to Covenant Life) — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredCovenant Life sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b.
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
What Grows in Covenant Life
Every plant below cleared Covenant Life's own zone 5b and its 195-day season. Each card opens that plant's Alaska profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Covenant Life?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 17; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 14 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 26 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. As the window narrows, the plantings just get faster — fall brassicas, then greens, then garlic to finish.
What's on the federal record near Covenant Life
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Covenant Life. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Merrill's SilverMining · 1.9 mi
- Golden EagleMining · 4.0 mi
- Summit CreekMining · 4.1 mi
- McKinley Creek LodeMining · 4.2 mi
- Porcupine Creek PlacerMining · 4.3 mi
- McKinley Creek FallsMining · 4.3 mi
- Unnamed (along Summit Creek)Mining · 4.7 mi
- Annex Number 1Mining · 4.9 mi
- Tsirku SilverMining · 5.9 mi
- Red CreekMining · 7.0 mi
- Unnamed (on headwater tributary to Porcupine Creek)Mining · 7.3 mi
- CD02905601BBAC1 002Nitrate · 7.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Covenant Life'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 Covenant Life.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Covenant Life
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Covenant Life
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Covenant Life, Mining runs higher than the national average — 28 sites within ~10 miles of Covenant Life. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Covenant Life
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 Covenant Life average
Your land is one point inside Covenant Life
Everything above resolves to Covenant Life as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 17K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Haines Borough’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 Covenant Life Average
Covenant Life Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Covenant Life
- ●One soil character for all of Covenant Life
- ●Frost dates read at Covenant Life's scale: Apr 14 to Oct 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Covenant Life's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Covenant Life
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Covenant Life, Alaska — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Covenant Life averages can't show:
We read public map data around Covenant Life — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Covenant Life average
How we know this about Covenant Life
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 Haines Borough’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 Covenant Life
When does frost risk typically end in Covenant Life?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Covenant Life typically lands around Apr 14, 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 May 5.
When is the first frost in Covenant Life?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Covenant Life typically arrives around Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 12, so the watching starts about Sep 26 — about 195 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Covenant Life?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Covenant Life sees about 195 frost-free days — roughly Apr 14 through Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 5 to Oct 12, about 160 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Covenant Life?
The federal record around Covenant Life shows 37 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (28), the nearest Mining record about 1.9 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 Covenant Life?
From about Sep 26 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 Oct 26 (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 Oct 26. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Covenant Life's scale — its 5b band and its 195-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Covenant Life'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 Covenant Life’s own scale
4 of the readings below were taken at Covenant Life's own scale — the 17,314 acres it covers and 37 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Covenant Life's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- 37 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Covenant Life, the closest Mining record about 1.9 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Covenant Life's boundary and the 17,314 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~195-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Covenant Life has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Haines Borough
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Covenant Life's 17,314 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Haines County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Haines County
- The growing challenges every Alaska grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Alaska
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Haines County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Covenant Life's 17,314 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Covenant Life you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 17,314 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Mining record about 1.9 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 Covenant Life-wide figureread your own land →