Cedar Ridge, 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.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Cedar Ridge, 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 Cedar Ridge 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 Cedar Ridge — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Cedar Ridge — the short answer
Cedar Ridge, California: USDA zone 8b, about 269 days between hard freezes, across 5K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~269
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 5K 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 Cedar Ridge's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cedar Ridge's 269-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cedar Ridge
Each reading below is measured for Cedar Ridge itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCedar Ridge runs about 269 days between hard freezes — close to year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredCedar Ridge 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 Cedar Ridge is in
Cedar Ridge sits in the Sierra Nevada — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at Cedar Ridge's own centroid rather than borrowed from Tuolumne County.
What Grows in Cedar Ridge
Every plant below cleared Cedar Ridge's own zone 8b and its 269-day season. Each card opens that plant's California profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Cedar Ridge?
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 Feb 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 8 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 2 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
What's on the federal record near Cedar Ridge
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cedar Ridge. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SHORTLINE TRANSFER SERVICEBrownfields · 2500 ft
- HenningMining · 0.5 mi
- Mildred LloydMining · 0.6 mi
- CUSD-SIERRA OUT DOOR SCHOOL AT FIVE MILE CREEKBrownfields · 1.9 mi
- SonnetMining · 2.0 mi
- JOHN HICKS TRUCKINGBrownfields · 2.4 mi
- StarMining · 2.6 mi
- TWAIN HARTE COMMUNITY SERVICES DISTBrownfields · 2.8 mi
- SONORA CIRCUITS CORPORATIONBrownfields · 2.8 mi
- TUD - UPPER BASIN WATER SYSTEMPFAS · 2.9 mi
- BARRY DUGAN ELECTRIC INC DBA BARRY ELECTRICBrownfields · 2.9 mi
- Wayne's Twain Harte ShellUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cedar Ridge'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 Cedar Ridge.
Total Sites
286
within ~10 miles of Cedar Ridge
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
5 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cedar Ridge
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cedar Ridge
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cedar Ridge, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Cedar Ridge — Mining (41 sites) and PFAS (5 sites). 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.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Cedar Ridge
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 Cedar Ridge average
Your land is one point inside Cedar Ridge
Everything above resolves to Cedar Ridge as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 5K 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 Cedar Ridge Average
Cedar Ridge Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Cedar Ridge
- ●One soil character for all of Cedar Ridge
- ●Frost dates read at Cedar Ridge's scale: Mar 8 to Dec 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cedar Ridge's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cedar Ridge
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cedar Ridge, California — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cedar Ridge averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cedar Ridge — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cedar Ridge average
How we know this about Cedar Ridge
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 Cedar Ridge’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 Cedar Ridge
When does frost risk typically end in Cedar Ridge?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cedar Ridge typically lands around Mar 8, 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 Mar 29.
When is the first frost in Cedar Ridge?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cedar Ridge typically arrives around Dec 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 18, so the watching starts about Nov 2 — about 269 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Cedar Ridge?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cedar Ridge sees about 269 frost-free days — roughly Mar 8 through Dec 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 29 to Nov 18, about 234 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cedar Ridge?
The federal record around Cedar Ridge runs heavier than most — 286 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (208), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.5 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 Cedar Ridge?
From about Nov 2 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 Dec 2 (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 Dec 2. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Cedar Ridge's scale — its 8b band and its 269-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cedar Ridge'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 Cedar Ridge’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Cedar Ridge's own scale — its own ~269-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,997 acres it covers and 286 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cedar Ridge's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cedar Ridge's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 8 and Dec 2 and the ~269-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 286 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cedar Ridge, the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cedar Ridge's boundary and the 4,997 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~269-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Cedar Ridge's own centroid, the Sierra NevadaUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Cedar Ridge's 4,997 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Tuolumne County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Tuolumne 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 Tuolumne County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Cedar Ridge's 4,997 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cedar Ridge you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,997 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 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 Cedar Ridge-wide figureread your own land →