Butte Meadows, California, 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 Butte Meadows, 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 Butte Meadows 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 Butte Meadows — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Butte Meadows — the short answer
Butte Meadows, California: USDA zone 8a, about 201 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~201
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 Butte Meadows's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Butte Meadows's 201-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Butte Meadows
Each reading below is measured for Butte Meadows itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredButte Meadows runs about 201 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
MeasuredButte Meadows 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 Butte Meadows is in
Butte Meadows sits in the Cascades — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at Butte Meadows's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Butte County is mostly Central California Valley. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Butte Meadows
Every plant below cleared Butte Meadows's own zone 8a and its 201-day season. Each card opens that plant's California profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Butte Meadows?
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 Mar 27; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 24 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 11 — 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 Butte Meadows
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Butte Meadows. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 026N004E29H001MNitrate · 1500 ft
- 026N004E20F001MNitrate · 0.8 mi
- 026N004E30H001MNitrate · 1.0 mi
- Glen ProspectMining · 6.5 mi
- Bonanza KingMining · 7.7 mi
Measured from Butte Meadows'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 Butte Meadows.
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Butte Meadows
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
- •Mine waste leaches heavy metals. Test for lead, arsenic and cadmium before growing food here.
Check your specific parcel in Butte Meadows
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 Butte Meadows average
Your land is one point inside Butte Meadows
Everything above resolves to Butte Meadows as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Butte Meadows Average
Butte Meadows Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Butte Meadows
- ●One soil character for all of Butte Meadows
- ●Frost dates read at Butte Meadows's scale: Apr 24 to Nov 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Butte Meadows's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Butte Meadows
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Butte Meadows, California — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Butte Meadows averages can't show:
We read public map data around Butte Meadows — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Butte Meadows average
How we know this about Butte Meadows
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 Butte Meadows’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 Butte Meadows
When does frost risk typically end in Butte Meadows?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Butte Meadows typically lands around Apr 24, 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 15.
When is the first frost in Butte Meadows?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Butte Meadows typically arrives around Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 28, so the watching starts about Oct 12 — about 201 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Butte Meadows?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Butte Meadows sees about 201 frost-free days — roughly Apr 24 through Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 15 to Oct 28, about 166 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Butte Meadows?
The federal record around Butte Meadows shows 8 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (6), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.3 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 Butte Meadows?
From about Oct 12 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 11 (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 11. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Butte Meadows's scale — its 8a band and its 201-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Butte Meadows'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 Butte Meadows’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Butte Meadows's own scale — its own ~201-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,372 acres it covers and 8 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Butte Meadows's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Butte Meadows's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 24 and Nov 11 and the ~201-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 8 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Butte Meadows, the closest Nitrate record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Butte Meadows's boundary and the 1,372 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~201-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Butte Meadows sits in the Cascades — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Butte Meadows's 1,372 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Butte County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Butte 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 Butte County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Butte Meadows's 1,372 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Butte Meadows you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,372 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.3 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 Butte Meadows-wide figureread your own land →
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