Alleghany, California, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Growers here do well with cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Alleghany, 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 Alleghany 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 Alleghany — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Alleghany — the short answer
Alleghany, California: USDA zone 8b, about 237 days between hard freezes, across 223 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~237
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 223 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 8b is Alleghany's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Alleghany's 237-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Alleghany
Each reading below is measured for Alleghany itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredAlleghany runs about 237 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
MeasuredAlleghany sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b.
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 Alleghany is in
Alleghany sits in the Sierra Nevada — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at Alleghany's own centroid rather than borrowed from Sierra County.
What Grows in Alleghany
Every plant below cleared Alleghany's own zone 8b and its 237-day season. Each card opens that plant's California profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Alleghany?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 6; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 3 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 26 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
What's on the federal record near Alleghany
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Alleghany. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Minnie D. & Lucky LarryMining · 900 ft
- SIERRA COUNTY - DEPT OF PUBLIC WORKSBrownfields · 1300 ft
- EldoradoMining · 2100 ft
- Original Sixteen-To-OneMining · 2300 ft
- ScotiaMining · 1.1 mi
- Scotia & Alice ConsMining · 1.1 mi
- KentonMining · 1.3 mi
- MacchausMining · 1.7 mi
- CrossusMining · 1.7 mi
- Mccormick ProspectMining · 1.7 mi
- MccormickMining · 1.8 mi
- PlumbagoMining · 1.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Alleghany'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 Alleghany.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Alleghany
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Alleghany
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Alleghany, Mining runs higher than the national average — 103 sites within ~10 miles of Alleghany. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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 Alleghany
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 Alleghany average
Your land is one point inside Alleghany
Everything above resolves to Alleghany as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 223 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 Alleghany Average
Alleghany Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Alleghany
- ●One soil character for all of Alleghany
- ●Frost dates read at Alleghany's scale: Apr 3 to Nov 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Alleghany's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Alleghany
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Alleghany, California — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Alleghany averages can't show:
We read public map data around Alleghany — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Alleghany average
How we know this about Alleghany
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 Alleghany’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 Alleghany
When does frost risk typically end in Alleghany?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Alleghany typically lands around Apr 3, 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 24.
When is the first frost in Alleghany?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Alleghany typically arrives around Nov 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 12, so the watching starts about Oct 27 — about 237 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Alleghany?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Alleghany sees about 237 frost-free days — roughly Apr 3 through Nov 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 24 to Nov 12, about 202 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Alleghany?
The federal record around Alleghany runs heavier than most — 124 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (103), the nearest Mining record about 0.2 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Alleghany?
From about Oct 27 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 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 Nov 26. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Alleghany's scale — its 8b band and its 237-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Alleghany'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 Alleghany’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Alleghany's own scale — its own ~237-day season between 28°F freezes, the 223 acres it covers and 124 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Alleghany's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Alleghany's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 3 and Nov 26 and the ~237-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 124 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Alleghany, the closest Mining record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Alleghany's boundary and the 223 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~237-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Alleghany's own centroid, the Sierra NevadaUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Alleghany's 223 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Sierra County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Sierra County
- The growing challenges every California grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom California
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Sierra County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Alleghany's 223 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Alleghany you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 223 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Mining record about 0.2 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 Alleghany-wide figureread your own land →
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