El Portal, California, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Among the crops suited to this profile: artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in El Portal, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single El Portal lot. 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 El Portal — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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El Portal — the short answer
El Portal, California: USDA zone 9a, about 281 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~281
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 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 El Portal's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against El Portal's 281-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in El Portal
Each reading below is measured for El Portal itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredEl Portal runs about 281 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
MeasuredEl Portal 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 El Portal is in
El Portal sits in the Sierra Nevada — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at El Portal's own centroid rather than borrowed from Mariposa County.
What Grows in El Portal
Every plant below cleared El Portal's own zone 9a and its 281-day season. Each card opens that plant's California profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in El Portal?
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 Jan 29; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 4 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the calendar nearly circles: cool-season crops take the winter shift, and the next window is always close.
What's on the federal record near El Portal
Closest first, within ~10 miles of El Portal. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CHEVRON USA INC EL PORTAL BULK PLTBrownfields · 650 ft
- EL PORTAL RR FLATSuperfund · 1400 ft
- US NATL PARK SERVICE YOSEMITE NATL PARKSuperfund · 1700 ft
- US NATL PARK SERVICE YOSEMITE NATL PARKToxics Release Inventory · 1700 ft
- MERCED CTY DIV ENV HEALTHBrownfields · 1700 ft
- US NATL PARK SERVICE YOSEMITE NATL PARKBrownfields · 1700 ft
- YNP-El Portal Maintenance ComplexUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- YH - El Portal Service StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- EL PORTAL BARIUM TAILINGSSuperfund · 0.9 mi
- Williams BrothersMining · 2.1 mi
- Eureka IiiMining · 2.3 mi
- PACIFIC BELL TELEPHONEBrownfields · 2.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from El Portal'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 El Portal.
Total Sites
35
within ~10 miles of El Portal
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of El Portal
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of El Portal
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around El Portal, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of El Portal — Mining (14 sites) and Superfund (3 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.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in El Portal
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 El Portal average
Your land is one point inside El Portal
Everything above resolves to El Portal as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 town 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 local average.
Your Lot vs the El Portal Average
El Portal Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across El Portal
- ●One soil character for all of El Portal
- ●Frost dates read at El Portal's scale: Feb 26 to Dec 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not El Portal's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in El Portal
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in El Portal, California — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that El Portal averages can't show:
We read public map data around El Portal — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the El Portal average
How we know this about El Portal
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at El Portal’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about El Portal
When does frost risk typically end in El Portal?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in El Portal typically lands around Feb 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 Mar 19.
When is the first frost in El Portal?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in El Portal typically arrives around Dec 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 20, so the watching starts about Nov 4 — about 281 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in El Portal?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, El Portal sees about 281 frost-free days — roughly Feb 26 through Dec 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 19 to Nov 20, about 246 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in El Portal?
The federal record around El Portal runs heavier than most — 35 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (14), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.1 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 I protect my plants from frost in El Portal?
From about Nov 4 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Dec 4 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Dec 4. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at El Portal's scale — its 9a band and its 281-day season. Your yard writes its own version of El Portal's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at El Portal’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at El Portal's own scale — its own ~281-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,193 acres it covers and 35 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- El Portal's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- El Portal's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Feb 26 and Dec 4 and the ~281-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 35 documented contamination sites on the federal record near El Portal, the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- El Portal's boundary and the 1,193 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~281-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at El Portal's own centroid, the Sierra NevadaUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so El Portal's 1,193 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Mariposa County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Mariposa County
- The growing challenges every California grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom California
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Mariposa County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among El Portal's 1,193 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of El Portal you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,193 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any El Portal-wide figureread your own land →
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