Carpinteria, California, sits in USDA hardiness zone 10b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
A short list that earns its place here — artichoke, meyer lemon, california poppy, and cabbage — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Carpinteria, 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 Carpinteria 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 Carpinteria — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Carpinteria — the short answer
Carpinteria, California: USDA zone 10b, no 28°F killing freeze on record — the season is year-round, across 2K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 10b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Killing freeze
- None on record
- NOAA RCC ACIS 1991–2020, this town’s own record
- City area
- 2K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. The year-round finding is measured — a 30-year record with no 28°F killing freeze in it — never inferred from missing dates.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 10b is Carpinteria's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Carpinteria's no killing freeze on record, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Carpinteria
Each reading below is measured for Carpinteria itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Winter hardiness
MeasuredCarpinteria sits in USDA hardiness zone 10b.
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 Carpinteria is in
Carpinteria sits in the Southern California/Northern Baja Coast — EPA Level III, inside the wider Mediterranean California. That is read at Carpinteria's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Santa Barbara County is mostly Central California Foothills and Coastal Mountains. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Carpinteria
Every plant below cleared Carpinteria's own zone 10b. Each card opens that plant's California profile. How we score.
What's on the federal record near Carpinteria
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Carpinteria. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- S CALIFORNIA GAS CO CARPINTERIABrownfields · 1600 ft
- KONO AND SONS INCBrownfields · 2100 ft
- BEGA - U.S.Brownfields · 2600 ft
- CITY OF CARPINTERIABrownfields · 0.5 mi
- MARINE SPILL RESPONSE CORPORATIONBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- CHEVRON USA INC DBA CARPINTERIA GAS PLANTBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- VENOCO INCBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- VENOCO INC-OFFSHORE PLATFORM GAILBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- VENOCO INC-OFFSHORE PLATFORM GRACEBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- CARPINTERIA OIL & GAS PROCESSING PLANTBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- DCOR- SHOREBASEBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- JOE COSTA AUTO WORKSBrownfields · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Carpinteria'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 Carpinteria.
Total Sites
363
within ~10 miles of Carpinteria
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
15 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Carpinteria
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Carpinteria
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Carpinteria, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Carpinteria — Nitrate (156 sites) and Brownfields (177 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in Carpinteria
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 Carpinteria average
Your land is one point inside Carpinteria
Everything above resolves to Carpinteria as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 city 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 Carpinteria Average
Carpinteria Average
- ●USDA Zones 10b, averaged across Carpinteria
- ●One soil character for all of Carpinteria
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Carpinteria's 10b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Carpinteria
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Carpinteria, California — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Carpinteria averages can't show:
We read public map data around Carpinteria — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Carpinteria average
How we know this about Carpinteria
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals, with the labelled statewide window where none resolves; 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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Carpinteria
Is it too late to plant in Carpinteria?
No — Carpinteria has no 28°F killing freeze in the 30-year station record, so the growing season is year-round and there is no last-frost date to wait for. Planting is paced by rainfall, heat and daylength instead of by frost: start heat-lovers any month, and time cool-season crops (lettuce, brassicas, peas) for the cooler, wetter half of the year or for higher ground. Succession sowing every few weeks works all year, so the limit is what you can keep watered and harvested, not the calendar.
When does frost risk typically end in Carpinteria?
It doesn't — Carpinteria records no 28°F killing freeze at all across the 1991–2020 station record, so there is no spring frost date to plant after. Cold still matters with elevation: the higher you garden, the cooler the nights, and a few tropical crops sulk below about 60°F even where they never freeze.
How long is the growing season in Carpinteria?
Year-round — the 1991–2020 station record for Carpinteria contains no 28°F killing freeze, so there is no season to measure between freezes. What paces planting instead is heat, rainfall and daylength: the hottest, wettest stretch is the hard part for cool-season crops, not winter. Elevation is the one real exception — the higher you garden, the colder the nights get.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Carpinteria?
The federal record around Carpinteria is a meaningful one — 363 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (177), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
Everything above is measured at Carpinteria's scale — its 10b band and its no killing freeze on record. Your yard writes its own version of Carpinteria'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 Carpinteria’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Carpinteria's own scale — the 1,656 acres it covers and 363 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Carpinteria's own USDA hardiness band, zones 10bUSDA PHZM 2023
- No 28°F killing freeze in the 30-year station record covering Carpinteria — a year-round growing seasonNOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- 363 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Carpinteria, the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Carpinteria's boundary and the 1,656 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear Carpinteria's hardiness zoneGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Carpinteria sits in the Southern California/Northern Baja Coast — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Carpinteria's 1,656 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Santa Barbara County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Santa Barbara 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 Santa Barbara County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Carpinteria's 1,656 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Carpinteria you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,656 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Carpinteria-wide figureread your own land →