Alpine County, in California, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Growers here do well with cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Alpine County lies within the Sierra Nevada High Country / Eastern Sierra — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Alpine County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Alpine County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Alpine County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Alpine County — the short answer
Alpine County, California: USDA zone 6b, about 122 days between hard freezes, across 473K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jun 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~122
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 473K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 6b is Alpine County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Alpine County's 122-day season, see what your own ground reads.
One county, several growing seasons
Alpine County's hard-freeze record runs about 122 days between freezes — but that is the county-wide average, and several towns inside it carry a markedly different season in their own 30-year record: Mesa Vista at about 153 days (against the county's ~122).
Those are measured records, not estimates. If you garden in one of these pockets, plant against your own town's season rather than the county's ~122-day average.
NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS (1991–2020), 30-year daily minimum record. Only held-out towns carrying their own record are named — a town with no record of its own is absent rather than estimated, and a county with nothing qualifying shows no spread at all.
Heat in Alpine County
Across a year, Alpine County accumulates about 856 growing degree days above 50°F, about 2,901 fewer than the middle California county — no other California county banks fewer. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Alpine County
Across Alpine County, the ground is predominantly Inceptisols, where Joecut, Lithnip, and Toiyabe are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a unweathered bedrock surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.8–6.7, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Inceptisols
Drainage
Well drained
Hydric soils
2%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Alpine County
The USDA soil survey maps 43% of Alpine County as well drained — but another 56% drains differently: 34% excessively drained, 16% somewhat excessively drained.
Joecut is the most extensive named soil at 7% of mapped acres, then Lithnip (6%) and Toiyabe (5%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Alpine County
Each reading below is measured for Alpine County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Alpine County are well drained, in hydrologic group D — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Alpine County runs about pH 5.8–6.7, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredAlpine County runs about 122 days between hard freezes — 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
MeasuredAlpine County sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Alpine County is in
Alpine County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Sierra Nevada (93%) and Central Basin and Range (7%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Alpine County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Alpine County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 122-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's California profile.
Is it too late to plant in Alpine County?
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 May 5; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Jun 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 2 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. When the window is tight, the fall moves are quick ones — baby greens, radishes, and garlic set for next season.
Documented around Alpine County
- monarch butterfly5 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Alpine County
USGS estimates 50 lb of Glyphosate on Alpine County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Triclopyr (9 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Alpine County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Alpine County — 82 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Alpine County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Alpine County
Closest first, across Alpine County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Exchequer and Ixl MinesMining · 0.8 mi
- ExchequerMining · 1.0 mi
- I X LMining · 1.5 mi
- 010N020E20Q001MNitrate · 4.8 mi
- GlobeMining · 5.1 mi
- CALIFORNIA STATE PARKS GROVER HOT SPRINGS SPBrownfields · 5.4 mi
- LOVESTEDT TAILINGS SITEBrownfields · 5.5 mi
- AdvanceMining · 5.5 mi
- Silver Hill ProspectsMining · 5.6 mi
- Globe MineMining · 5.7 mi
- ZacaMining · 5.8 mi
- Zaca Mine & MillMining · 5.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Alpine County'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 Alpine County.
Sources Checked
across Alpine County
Severity Distribution
across Alpine County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Alpine County, Mining runs higher than the national average — 45 sites across Alpine County. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Alpine County
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 Alpine County average
Your land is one point inside Alpine County
Everything above resolves to Alpine County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 473K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Alpine County Average
Alpine County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Alpine County
- ●One soil character for all of Alpine County
- ●Frost dates read at Alpine County's scale: Jun 2 to Oct 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Alpine County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Alpine County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Alpine County, California — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Alpine County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Alpine County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Alpine County average
How we know this about Alpine County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Alpine County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Alpine County
When does frost risk typically end in Alpine County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Alpine County typically lands around Jun 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 Jun 23.
How long is the growing season in Alpine County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Alpine County sees about 122 frost-free days — roughly Jun 2 through Oct 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Jun 23 to Sep 18, about 87 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Alpine County?
The federal record around Alpine County runs heavier than most — 82 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (45), the nearest Mining record about 0.8 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 gardeners stretch the season in Alpine County?
With about 122 frost-free days between hard freezes, Alpine County 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 150 to 178 days — and cold frames or low tunnels buy more. Starting transplants indoors ahead of the Jun 2 hard-freeze normal stretches the season without touching the calendar.
Everything above is measured at Alpine County's scale — its 6b band and its 122-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Alpine County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads California's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Alpine County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Alpine County's own scale — its own ~122-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 82 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Alpine County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Alpine County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~122-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Alpine CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 82 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Mining record about 0.8 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Alpine County's boundary and the 472,537 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~122-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Alpine County spans, Sierra Nevada the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Alpine County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Alpine County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every California grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom California
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Alpine County — the ~122 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Alpine County's 472,537 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 82 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Alpine Countyread your own land →