Rough and Ready, California, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
These conditions suit tomato, artichoke, fig, and california poppy — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Rough and Ready, 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 Rough and Ready 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 Rough and Ready — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Rough and Ready — the short answer
Rough and Ready, California: USDA zone 9a, about 238 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 4
- Nevada County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 28
- Nevada County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~238
- Nevada County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Town area
- 2K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. No 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid, so the hard-freeze dates are Nevada County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 9a is Rough and Ready's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Rough and Ready's 238-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Rough and Ready
Each reading below is measured for Rough and Ready itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsRough and Ready runs about 238 days between hard freezes (read from Nevada County, the closest normal to Rough and Ready) — 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
MeasuredRough and Ready 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 Rough and Ready is in
Rough and Ready sits in the Sierra Nevada — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at Rough and Ready's own centroid rather than borrowed from Nevada County.
What Grows in Rough and Ready
Plants matched to Rough and Ready's USDA zones 9a, ordered by how much hardiness margin each has here — the ones with room to spare at both ends of this town's band lead. Each links to its full growing profile.
Is it too late to plant in Rough and Ready?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 4 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 28 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
What's on the federal record near Rough and Ready
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Rough and Ready. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 016N007E24C001MNitrate · 1700 ft
- Misletoe Qtz.Mining · 0.9 mi
- OsceolaMining · 1.4 mi
- SERRA CORP.Brownfields · 1.6 mi
- SERRA CORP.Toxics Release Inventory · 1.6 mi
- MONTES AUTOBrownfields · 1.7 mi
- 016N007E27B001MNitrate · 2.2 mi
- EmpressMining · 2.2 mi
- RELLI SWISS INCBrownfields · 2.3 mi
- West PointMining · 2.4 mi
- Normandie DulmaineMining · 2.5 mi
- CadmusMining · 2.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Rough and Ready'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 Rough and Ready.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Rough and Ready
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Rough and Ready
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Rough and Ready, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Rough and Ready — Mining (188 sites) and PFAS (6 sites). 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.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Rough and Ready
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 Rough and Ready average
Your land is one point inside Rough and Ready
Everything above resolves to Rough and Ready as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 2K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Nevada County’s record because no 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid. 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 Rough and Ready Average
Rough and Ready Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Rough and Ready
- ●One soil character for all of Rough and Ready
- ●Frost dates read at Rough and Ready's scale: Apr 4 to Nov 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Rough and Ready's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Rough and Ready
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Rough and Ready, California — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Rough and Ready averages can't show:
We read public map data around Rough and Ready — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Rough and Ready average
How we know this about Rough and Ready
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 Nevada County’s record, because none resolves here; 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 Rough and Ready
When does frost risk typically end in Rough and Ready?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Rough and Ready typically lands around Apr 4, 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 25.
When is the first frost in Rough and Ready?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Rough and Ready typically arrives around Nov 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 14, so the watching starts about Oct 29 — about 238 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Rough and Ready?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Rough and Ready sees about 238 frost-free days — roughly Apr 4 through Nov 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 25 to Nov 14, about 203 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Rough and Ready?
The federal record around Rough and Ready runs heavier than most — 613 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (333), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.3 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 Rough and Ready?
From about Oct 29 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 Nov 28 (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 Nov 28. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Rough and Ready's scale — its 9a band and its 238-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Rough and Ready'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 Rough and Ready’s own scale
4 of the readings below were taken at Rough and Ready's own scale — the 2,031 acres it covers and 613 documented sites around it; 6 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Rough and Ready's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- 613 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Rough and Ready, the closest Nitrate record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Rough and Ready's boundary and the 2,031 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- The ecoregion at Rough and Ready's own centroid, the Sierra NevadaUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Rough and Ready has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Nevada County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Rough and Ready's 2,031 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Nevada County
- The candidate plant list — California's curated set, filtered to this zone band and re-ordered by how much margin each has herefrom California
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Nevada 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 Nevada County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Rough and Ready's 2,031 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Rough and Ready you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,031 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.3 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 Rough and Ready-wide figureread your own land →