Inyo County, in California, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
These conditions suit cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Inyo County lies within the Mojave Desert — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Inyo County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Inyo 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 Inyo County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Inyo County — the short answer
Inyo County, California: USDA zone 8b, about 237 days between hard freezes, across 6.5M acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~237
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 6.5M 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 8b is Inyo County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Inyo County's 237-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Inyo County
Across a year, Inyo County accumulates about 3,711 growing degree days above 50°F, about 46 fewer than the middle California county — ahead of 27 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 2,111 hours below 45°F, 924 more 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 Inyo County
Across Inyo County, the ground is predominantly Entisols, where Brantel, Alamedawell, and Mazourka are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a gravelly loamy sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.0–8.2, slightly alkaline. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A soils.
Soil order
Entisols
Drainage
Well drained
Hydric soils
4%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Inyo County
The USDA soil survey maps 36% of Inyo County as well drained — but another 56% drains differently: 35% somewhat excessively drained, 8% somewhat poorly drained.
Brantel is the most extensive named soil at 9% of mapped acres, then Alamedawell (4%) and Mazourka (4%).
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 Inyo County
Each reading below is measured for Inyo 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 Inyo County are well drained, in hydrologic group A — 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 Inyo County runs about pH 7.0–8.2, on the alkaline side.
Many vegetables cope, but acid-lovers like blueberries struggle, and iron and manganese lock up above about pH 7.5 — leaves yellow between the veins even in rich soil.
Elemental sulfur and generous organic matter lower pH slowly for the beds that need it; test first so you add only what the soil actually calls for.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredInyo County runs about 237 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
MeasuredInyo County 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 Inyo County is in
Inyo County spans 3 EPA Level III ecoregions — Mojave Basin and Range (75%), Central Basin and Range (17%) and Sierra Nevada (8%). 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 Inyo County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Inyo County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 237-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 Inyo County?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 18 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Inyo County
- monarch butterfly17 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Inyo County
USGS estimates 656 lb of Glyphosate on Inyo County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (299 lb) and Hexazinone (175 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 Inyo County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Inyo County — 1,182 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 4 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Inyo 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 Inyo County
Closest first, across Inyo County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Williams & Johnson MineMining · 3.7 mi
- (Facility) Inyo Copper Mines and Smelter Co.Mining · 4.1 mi
- Tourmaline Nos. 1-4Mining · 6.7 mi
- Green Quartz ClaimMining · 7.1 mi
- Monarch MineMining · 7.2 mi
- Palmer ProspectMining · 7.9 mi
- Butte GroupMining · 8.2 mi
- Kerdell MineMining · 8.5 mi
- Settle UpMining · 8.5 mi
- Apple No. 1 ClaimMining · 8.8 mi
- Big FourMining · 9.0 mi
- VlidaMining · 9.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Inyo 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 Inyo County.
Sources Checked
across Inyo County
Severity Distribution
across Inyo County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Inyo County, Mining runs higher than the national average — 811 sites across Inyo 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 Inyo 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 Inyo County average
Your land is one point inside Inyo County
Everything above resolves to Inyo County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 6.5M 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 Inyo County Average
Inyo County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Inyo County
- ●One soil character for all of Inyo County
- ●Frost dates read at Inyo County's scale: Mar 26 to Nov 18
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Inyo County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Inyo County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Inyo County, California — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Inyo County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Inyo County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Inyo County average
How we know this about Inyo 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 Inyo County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Inyo County
When does frost risk typically end in Inyo County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Inyo County typically lands around Mar 26, 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 Apr 16.
How long is the growing season in Inyo County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Inyo County sees about 237 frost-free days — roughly Mar 26 through Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 16 to Nov 4, about 202 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Inyo County?
The federal record around Inyo County runs heavier than most — 1,182 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (811), the nearest Mining record about 3.7 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 Inyo County's scale — its 8b band and its 237-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Inyo 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 Inyo County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Inyo County's own scale — its own ~237-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 1,182 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Inyo County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Inyo County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~237-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Inyo CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 1,182 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Mining record about 3.7 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Inyo County's boundary and the 6,526,241 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~237-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 3 ecoregions Inyo County spans, Mojave Basin and Range the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Inyo County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Inyo 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 Inyo County — the ~237 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 Inyo County's 6,526,241 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 1,182 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 Inyo Countyread your own land →