Shasta County, in California, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
A short list that earns its place here — artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Shasta County lies within the Shasta Cascade — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Shasta County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Shasta 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 Shasta County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Shasta County — the short answer
Shasta County, California: USDA zone 9a, about 300 days between hard freezes, across 2.4M acres.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~300
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 2.4M 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 9a is Shasta County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Shasta County's 300-day season, see what your own ground reads.
One county, several growing seasons
Shasta County's hard-freeze record runs about 300 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: Castella at about 237 days and Shingletown at 237 (against the county's ~300).
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 ~300-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 and winter chill in Shasta County
Across a year, Shasta County accumulates about 4,163 growing degree days above 50°F, about 406 more than the middle California county — ahead of 32 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 1,608 hours below 45°F, 421 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 Shasta County
Across Shasta County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Cohasset, Newtown, and Toomes are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a gravelly loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.0–6.6, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Hydric soils
3%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Shasta County
The USDA soil survey maps 72% of Shasta County as well drained — but another 25% drains differently: 8% moderately well drained, 7% excessively drained.
Cohasset is the most extensive named soil at 6% of mapped acres, then Newtown (3%) and Toomes (3%).
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 Shasta County
Each reading below is measured for Shasta 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 Shasta County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — 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 Shasta County runs about pH 6.0–6.6, 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
MeasuredShasta County runs about 300 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
MeasuredShasta County sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a.
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 Shasta County is in
Shasta County spans 3 EPA Level III ecoregions — Cascades (40%), Klamath Mountains/California High North Coast Range (35%) and Central California Foothills and Coastal Mountains (23%). 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 Shasta County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Shasta County's own USDA zone 9a and its own 300-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 Shasta County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 15; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 12 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 9 — 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.
Documented around Shasta County
- monarch butterfly16 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Shasta County
USGS estimates 5,440 lb of Glyphosate on Shasta County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (4,171 lb) and Malathion (496 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 Shasta County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Shasta County — 1,862 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 11 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Shasta 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 Shasta County
Closest first, across Shasta County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- STRICKLANDS AUTO REPAIRBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- AsherMining · 0.9 mi
- Grotefend Zinc ProspectMining · 1.1 mi
- Canyon GroupMining · 1.1 mi
- St. JohnMining · 1.8 mi
- St John ProspectMining · 1.9 mi
- Unnamed PropertyMining · 2.1 mi
- Sugarloaf and HomestakeMining · 2.2 mi
- PolkinghamMining · 2.2 mi
- CortezMining · 2.3 mi
- DonkeyMining · 2.3 mi
- AFTERTHOUGHT MINESuperfund · 2.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Shasta 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 Shasta County.
Sources Checked
across Shasta County
Severity Distribution
across Shasta County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Shasta County, two things run higher than the national average across Shasta County — Mining (364 sites) and Brownfields (1,074 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in Shasta 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 Shasta County average
Your land is one point inside Shasta County
Everything above resolves to Shasta County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 2.4M 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 Shasta County Average
Shasta County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Shasta County
- ●One soil character for all of Shasta County
- ●Frost dates read at Shasta County's scale: Feb 12 to Dec 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Shasta County's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Shasta County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Shasta County, California — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Shasta County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Shasta County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Shasta County average
How we know this about Shasta 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 Shasta County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Shasta County
When does frost risk typically end in Shasta County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Shasta County typically lands around Feb 12, 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 5.
How long is the growing season in Shasta County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Shasta County sees about 300 frost-free days — roughly Feb 12 through Dec 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 5 to Nov 25, about 265 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Shasta County?
The federal record around Shasta County runs heavier than most — 1,862 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (1,074), the nearest Brownfields 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.
Everything above is measured at Shasta County's scale — its 9a band and its 300-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Shasta 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 Shasta County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Shasta County's own scale — its own ~300-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 1,862 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Shasta County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Shasta County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~300-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Shasta CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 1,862 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 0.8 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Shasta County's boundary and the 2,416,415 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~300-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 3 ecoregions Shasta County spans, Cascades the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Shasta County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Shasta 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 Shasta County — the ~300 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 Shasta County's 2,416,415 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 1,862 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 Shasta Countyread your own land →