Butte County, in California, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Well-matched crops include okra, meyer lemon, california poppy, and artichoke, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Butte County lies within the Sacramento Valley — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Butte County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Butte 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 Butte County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Butte County — the short answer
Butte County, California: USDA zone 9b, about 332 days between hard freezes, across 1.0M acres.
- USDA zone
- 9b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jan 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~332
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 1.0M 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 9b is Butte County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Butte County's 332-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Butte County
Across a year, Butte County accumulates about 4,644 growing degree days above 50°F, about 887 more than the middle California county — ahead of 46 of California’s 57 counties. 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.
Winter banks about 1,056 hours below 45°F, 131 fewer than the California middle of 1,187. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Butte County
Across Butte County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Esquon, Dunstone, and Lofgren are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a gravelly loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.0–6.7, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Hydric soils
20%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Butte County
The USDA soil survey maps 51% of Butte County as well drained — but another 46% drains differently: 16% poorly drained, 11% moderately well drained.
Esquon is the most extensive named soil at 4% of mapped acres, then Dunstone (3%) and Lofgren (2%).
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 Butte County
Each reading below is measured for Butte 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 Butte 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 Butte County runs about pH 6.0–6.7, 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
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 20% of Butte County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredButte County runs about 332 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
The kind of country Butte County is in
Butte County spans 4 EPA Level III ecoregions — Central California Valley (39%), Sierra Nevada (28%), Central California Foothills and Coastal Mountains (24%) and Cascades (9%). 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 Butte County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Butte County's own USDA zone 9b and its own 332-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 Butte County?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Jan 19 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 17 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. In a climate this gentle, “too late” hardly applies — the question becomes which crops prefer the cooler months ahead.
Documented around Butte County
- monarch butterfly2 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Butte County
USGS estimates 149,216 lb of Glyphosate on Butte County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Thiobencarb (105,424 lb) and Azoxystrobin (17,969 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 Butte County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Butte County — 1,898 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 15 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Butte 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 Butte County
Closest first, across Butte County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 021N003E22F001MNitrate · 1.4 mi
- OROVILLE LAKE MARINAS LLC DBA LIME SADDLE MARINABrownfields · 2.0 mi
- CALTRANS 03-0G8604Brownfields · 2.0 mi
- CALTRANS 03-4H8304Brownfields · 2.0 mi
- 021N003E10K001MNitrate · 2.0 mi
- CLEAR CREEK CROSSINGBrownfields · 2.0 mi
- CLEAR CREEK CROSSINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- BCJ SAND AND ROCK, INC.Brownfields · 2.2 mi
- VALLEY SILICA DBA VALLEY SAND AND ROCK INCBrownfields · 2.2 mi
- 021N003E35F001MNitrate · 2.2 mi
- 021N004E30A001MNitrate · 2.4 mi
- BUTTE-GLENN COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Butte 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 Butte County.
Sources Checked
across Butte County
Severity Distribution
across Butte County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Butte County, two things run higher than the national average across Butte County — Brownfields (1,223 sites) and Mining (130 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Butte 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 Butte County average
Your land is one point inside Butte County
Everything above resolves to Butte County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 1.0M 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 Butte County Average
Butte County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9b, averaged across Butte County
- ●One soil character for all of Butte County
- ●Frost dates read at Butte County's scale: Jan 19 to Dec 17
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Butte County's 9b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Butte County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Butte County, California — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Butte County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Butte County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Butte County average
How we know this about Butte 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 Butte County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Butte County
When does frost risk typically end in Butte County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Butte County typically lands around Jan 19, 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 Feb 9.
How long is the growing season in Butte County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Butte County sees about 332 frost-free days — roughly Jan 19 through Dec 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 9 to Dec 3, about 297 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Butte County?
The federal record around Butte County runs heavier than most — 1,898 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (1,223), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.4 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.
Everything above is measured at Butte County's scale — its 9b band and its 332-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Butte 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 Butte County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Butte County's own scale — its own ~332-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 1,898 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Butte County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Butte County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~332-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Butte CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 1,898 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 1.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Butte County's boundary and the 1,047,366 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9b and a ~332-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 4 ecoregions Butte County spans, Central California Valley the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Butte County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Butte 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 Butte County — the ~332 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 Butte County's 1,047,366 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 1,898 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 Butte Countyread your own land →