Mammoth Lakes, California, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Growers here do well with pumpkin, blackberry, california poppy, and zucchini — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Mammoth Lakes, 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 Mammoth Lakes 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 Mammoth Lakes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Mammoth Lakes — the short answer
Mammoth Lakes, California: USDA zone 6a, about 96 days between hard freezes, across 16K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jun 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Sep 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~96
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 16K 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 6a is Mammoth Lakes's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Mammoth Lakes's 96-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Mammoth Lakes
Each reading below is measured for Mammoth Lakes itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMammoth Lakes runs about 96 days between hard freezes — a short growing season.
Long-maturing crops like melons, sweet potatoes, and winter squash can run out of runway before the first hard freeze, ripening late or not at all.
Lead with fast-maturing varieties, and stretch the season on both ends with cold frames, low tunnels, or a greenhouse.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredMammoth Lakes sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Mammoth Lakes is in
Mammoth Lakes sits in the Sierra Nevada — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at Mammoth Lakes's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Mono County is mostly Central Basin and Range. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Mammoth Lakes
Every plant below cleared Mammoth Lakes's own zone 6a and its 96-day season. Each card opens that plant's California profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Mammoth Lakes?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around May 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Jun 11 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Sep 15 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. When the window is tight, the fall moves are quick ones — baby greens, radishes, and garlic set for next season.
What's on the federal record near Mammoth Lakes
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Mammoth Lakes. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 003S027E03G001MNitrate · 0.5 mi
- 004S027E03Q001MNitrate · 0.5 mi
- 004S027E03Q002MNitrate · 0.6 mi
- 004S027E03C001MNitrate · 0.7 mi
- 004S027E03D001MNitrate · 0.8 mi
- 003S027E34Q001MNitrate · 0.9 mi
- Mammoth MineMining · 1.0 mi
- Mammoth Mine Folk, Armstrong, San Francisco, Big Bonanza and MammothMining · 1.0 mi
- UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SIERRA NEVADABrownfields · 1.1 mi
- CA DFG HOT CREEK HATCHERYBrownfields · 1.2 mi
- 003S027E34L001MNitrate · 1.2 mi
- CALTRANS DISTRICT 09Brownfields · 1.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Mammoth Lakes'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 Mammoth Lakes.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Mammoth Lakes
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Mammoth Lakes
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Mammoth Lakes, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Mammoth Lakes — Mining (44 sites) and Nitrate (74 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Mammoth Lakes
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 Mammoth Lakes average
Your land is one point inside Mammoth Lakes
Everything above resolves to Mammoth Lakes as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 16K 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 Mammoth Lakes Average
Mammoth Lakes Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Mammoth Lakes
- ●One soil character for all of Mammoth Lakes
- ●Frost dates read at Mammoth Lakes's scale: Jun 11 to Sep 15
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Mammoth Lakes's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Mammoth Lakes
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Mammoth Lakes, California — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Mammoth Lakes averages can't show:
We read public map data around Mammoth Lakes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mammoth Lakes average
How we know this about Mammoth Lakes
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 Mammoth Lakes’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 Mammoth Lakes
When does frost risk typically end in Mammoth Lakes?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Mammoth Lakes typically lands around Jun 11, 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 Jul 2.
When is the first frost in Mammoth Lakes?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Mammoth Lakes typically arrives around Sep 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Sep 1, so the watching starts about Aug 16 — about 96 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Mammoth Lakes?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Mammoth Lakes sees about 96 frost-free days — roughly Jun 11 through Sep 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Jul 2 to Sep 1, about 61 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Mammoth Lakes?
The federal record around Mammoth Lakes runs heavier than most — 168 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (74), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.5 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 gardeners stretch the season in Mammoth Lakes?
With about 96 frost-free days between hard freezes, Mammoth Lakes rewards the classic extension moves: floating row cover buys roughly two to four extra weeks at each shoulder — on this season that is a working window nearer 124 to 152 days — and cold frames or low tunnels buy more. Starting transplants indoors ahead of the Jun 11 hard-freeze normal stretches the season without touching the calendar.
Everything above is measured at Mammoth Lakes's scale — its 6a band and its 96-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Mammoth Lakes'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 Mammoth Lakes’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Mammoth Lakes's own scale — its own ~96-day season between 28°F freezes, the 15,914 acres it covers and 168 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Mammoth Lakes's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Mammoth Lakes's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Jun 11 and Sep 15 and the ~96-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 168 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Mammoth Lakes, the closest Nitrate record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Mammoth Lakes's boundary and the 15,914 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~96-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Mammoth Lakes sits in the Sierra Nevada — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Mammoth Lakes's 15,914 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Mono County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Mono 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 Mono County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Mammoth Lakes's 15,914 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Mammoth Lakes you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 15,914 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.5 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 Mammoth Lakes-wide figureread your own land →