Funny River, Alaska, sits in USDA hardiness zone 4a — 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, cranberry, cilantro, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Funny River, 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 Funny River 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 Funny River — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Funny River — the short answer
Funny River, Alaska: USDA zone 4a, about 148 days between hard freezes, across 17K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 4a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- May 2
- Kenai Peninsula Borough normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Sep 27
- Kenai Peninsula Borough normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~148
- Kenai Peninsula 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 Kenai Peninsula Borough’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 4a is Funny River's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Funny River's 148-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Funny River
Each reading below is measured for Funny River itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsFunny River runs about 148 days between hard freezes (read from Kenai Peninsula Borough, the closest normal to Funny River) — a short growing season.
Long-maturing crops like melons, sweet potatoes, and winter squash can run out of runway before the first hard freeze, ripening late or not at all.
Lead with fast-maturing varieties, and stretch the season on both ends with cold frames, low tunnels, or a greenhouse.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredFunny River sits in USDA hardiness zone 4a.
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 Funny River
Every plant below cleared Funny River's own zone 4a and its 148-day season. Each card opens that plant's Alaska profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Funny River?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Apr 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near May 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Sep 27 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. In a season this compact, fast finishers and cold-hardy greens do the late work, and garlic tucked in before the freeze repays you next summer.
What's on the federal record near Funny River
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Funny River. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SB00500927ABBB1 002Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- SB00500915CDDA1 039Nitrate · 2.9 mi
- SB00500911DACC2 025Nitrate · 3.5 mi
- SB00500817BDBA1 001Nitrate · 3.6 mi
- SB00500807DBCC1 027Nitrate · 3.7 mi
- Zipmart- Whittier Properties, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- SB00500807CADD1 006Nitrate · 3.8 mi
- Rol-dons, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- Sterling MallUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- Halliburton Logging Services, IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- Cook's Corner - Sterling TesoroUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- HALLIBURTON STERLING FACILITYToxics Release Inventory · 3.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Funny River'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 Funny River.
Total Sites
140
within ~10 miles of Funny River
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Funny River
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Funny River
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Funny River, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 92 sites within ~10 miles of Funny River. 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.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Funny River
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 Funny River average
Your land is one point inside Funny River
Everything above resolves to Funny River as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 17K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Kenai Peninsula 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 Funny River Average
Funny River Average
- ●USDA Zones 4a, averaged across Funny River
- ●One soil character for all of Funny River
- ●Frost dates read at Funny River's scale: May 2 to Sep 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Funny River's 4a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Funny River
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Funny River, Alaska — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Funny River averages can't show:
We read public map data around Funny River — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Funny River average
How we know this about Funny River
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 Kenai Peninsula 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 Funny River
When does frost risk typically end in Funny River?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Funny River typically lands around May 2, 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 23.
When is the first frost in Funny River?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Funny River typically arrives around Sep 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Sep 13, so the watching starts about Aug 28 — about 148 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Funny River?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Funny River sees about 148 frost-free days — roughly May 2 through Sep 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 23 to Sep 13, about 113 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Funny River?
The federal record around Funny River shows 140 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (92), the nearest Nitrate record about 2.1 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 gardeners stretch the season in Funny River?
With about 148 frost-free days between hard freezes, Funny River rewards the classic extension moves: floating row cover buys roughly two to four extra weeks at each shoulder — on this season that is a working window nearer 176 to 204 days — and cold frames or low tunnels buy more. Starting transplants indoors ahead of the May 2 hard-freeze normal stretches the season without touching the calendar.
Everything above is measured at Funny River's scale — its 4a band and its 148-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Funny River'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 Funny River’s own scale
4 of the readings below were taken at Funny River's own scale — the 17,097 acres it covers and 140 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Funny River's own USDA hardiness band, zones 4aUSDA PHZM 2023
- 140 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Funny River, the closest Nitrate record about 2.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Funny River's boundary and the 17,097 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 4a and a ~148-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Funny River has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Kenai Peninsula Borough
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Funny River's 17,097 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Kenai Peninsula County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Kenai Peninsula 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 Kenai Peninsula County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Funny River's 17,097 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Funny River you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 17,097 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 2.1 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 Funny River-wide figureread your own land →
More in Alaska
Wider growing context
What grows across AlaskaFunny River sits outside our named growing regions, so Alaska as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides