Sacramento County, in California, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
These conditions suit okra, meyer lemon, california poppy, and artichoke — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Sacramento County lies within Lodi and the California Delta — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Sacramento County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Sacramento 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 Sacramento County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Sacramento County — the short answer
Sacramento County, California: USDA zone 9b, about 324 days between hard freezes, across 618K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jan 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~324
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 618K 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 Sacramento County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Sacramento County's 324-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Sacramento County
Across a year, Sacramento County accumulates about 4,381 growing degree days above 50°F, about 624 more than the middle California county — ahead of 35 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 1,064 hours below 45°F, 123 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 Sacramento County
Across Sacramento County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where San Joaquin, Redding, and Gazwell are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.8–6.7, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Moderately well drained
Hydric soils
32%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Sacramento County
The USDA soil survey maps 38% of Sacramento County as moderately well drained — but another 52% drains differently: 22% well drained, 14% somewhat poorly drained.
San Joaquin is the most extensive named soil at 24% of mapped acres, then Redding (8%) and Gazwell (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 Sacramento County
Each reading below is measured for Sacramento 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 Sacramento County are moderately well drained, in hydrologic group D — roughly the middle of the drainage range.
This is close to the middle most vegetables prefer: it holds enough water to carry a crop between rains without staying waterlogged. The catch is that a wet spring or a low corner can still tip it soggy.
Plant on the site as-is for most crops, but keep the lowest, slowest-draining beds for moisture-tolerant plantings.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Sacramento 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
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 32% of Sacramento 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
MeasuredSacramento County runs about 324 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 Sacramento County is in
Sacramento County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Central California Valley (86%) and Central California Foothills and Coastal Mountains (14%). 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 Sacramento County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Sacramento County's own USDA zone 9b and its own 324-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 Sacramento 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 22 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 12 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. And with a calendar this mild, the honest answer is that planting barely stops — winter opens seasons colder regions never see.
Documented around Sacramento County
- monarch butterfly26 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Sacramento County
USGS estimates 96,283 lb of Glyphosate on Sacramento County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Oryzalin (8,352 lb) and Simazine (6,893 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 Sacramento County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Sacramento County — 6,887 documented sites across 8 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.
Sacramento 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 Sacramento County
Closest first, across Sacramento County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- EGUSD SHELDON HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 2100 ft
- AT&T MOBILITYBrownfields · 2500 ft
- CITY OF ELK GROVEBrownfields · 2600 ft
- CVS PHARMACY #0182Brownfields · 0.5 mi
- EGUSD-TR SMEDBERG MIDDLE SCHOOLBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- 007N006E20J003MNitrate · 0.7 mi
- PHOTO WASTE TRANSFERBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- LAURIE LA DOW DDS INCBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- CORNFLOWER FARMSBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- GOODWILL ELK GROVE NORTH XPRESSBrownfields · 1.4 mi
- DEEP & PREET, LLCBrownfields · 1.4 mi
- BEL AIR #523Brownfields · 1.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Sacramento 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 Sacramento County.
Severity Distribution
across Sacramento County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Sacramento County, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 6,013 sites across Sacramento County. 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.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in Sacramento 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 Sacramento County average
Your land is one point inside Sacramento County
Everything above resolves to Sacramento County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 618K 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 Sacramento County Average
Sacramento County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9b, averaged across Sacramento County
- ●One soil character for all of Sacramento County
- ●Frost dates read at Sacramento County's scale: Jan 22 to Dec 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Sacramento County's 9b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Sacramento County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Sacramento County, California — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Sacramento County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Sacramento County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Sacramento County average
How we know this about Sacramento 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 Sacramento County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Sacramento County
When does frost risk typically end in Sacramento County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Sacramento County typically lands around Jan 22, 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 12.
How long is the growing season in Sacramento County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Sacramento County sees about 324 frost-free days — roughly Jan 22 through Dec 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 12 to Nov 28, about 289 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Sacramento County?
The federal record around Sacramento County runs heavier than most — 6,887 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (6,013), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.4 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 Sacramento County's scale — its 9b band and its 324-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Sacramento 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 Sacramento County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Sacramento County's own scale — its own ~324-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 6,887 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Sacramento County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Sacramento County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~324-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Sacramento CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 6,887 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 0.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Sacramento County's boundary and the 617,843 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9b and a ~324-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Sacramento County spans, Central California Valley the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Sacramento County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Sacramento 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 Sacramento County — the ~324 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 Sacramento County's 617,843 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 6,887 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 Sacramento Countyread your own land →