Wofford Heights, California, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
These conditions suit cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Wofford Heights, 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 Wofford Heights 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 Wofford Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Wofford Heights — the short answer
Wofford Heights, California: USDA zone 8b, about 278 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~278
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 4K 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 8b is Wofford Heights's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Wofford Heights's 278-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Wofford Heights
Each reading below is measured for Wofford Heights itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWofford Heights runs about 278 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
MeasuredWofford Heights sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b.
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 Wofford Heights is in
Wofford Heights sits in the Central California Foothills and Coastal Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Mediterranean California. That is read at Wofford Heights's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Kern County is mostly Central California Valley. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Wofford Heights
Every plant below cleared Wofford Heights's own zone 8b and its 278-day season. Each card opens that plant's California profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Wofford Heights?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 27; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 24 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 29 — 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 Wofford Heights
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Wofford Heights. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SCE KERNVILLE SERVICE CTRBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- SCOTTY`S TEXACO MINI MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- WOFFORD HTS CHEVRON AND FOOD MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- DOLLAR GENERAL #15296Brownfields · 1.1 mi
- #7779 WOFFORD LIQUORUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- SIERRA AUTOMOTIVEBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- TUCKERS BRAKE & ALIGNMENTBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- BETTIE RATNERBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- Big Blue GroupMining · 2.1 mi
- BIG BLUE MILLSuperfund · 2.7 mi
- 026S032E12R001MNitrate · 2.8 mi
- USDA FOREST SERVICE (CAMP 9)Brownfields · 3.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Wofford Heights'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 Wofford Heights.
Total Sites
117
within ~10 miles of Wofford Heights
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Wofford Heights
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Wofford Heights
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Wofford Heights, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Wofford Heights — Mining (16 sites) and Brownfields (75 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.
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 Wofford Heights
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 Wofford Heights average
Your land is one point inside Wofford Heights
Everything above resolves to Wofford Heights as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 Wofford Heights Average
Wofford Heights Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Wofford Heights
- ●One soil character for all of Wofford Heights
- ●Frost dates read at Wofford Heights's scale: Feb 24 to Nov 29
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Wofford Heights's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Wofford Heights
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Wofford Heights, California — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Wofford Heights averages can't show:
We read public map data around Wofford Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Wofford Heights average
How we know this about Wofford Heights
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 Wofford Heights’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 Wofford Heights
When does frost risk typically end in Wofford Heights?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Wofford Heights typically lands around Feb 24, 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 17.
When is the first frost in Wofford Heights?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Wofford Heights typically arrives around Nov 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 15, so the watching starts about Oct 30 — about 278 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Wofford Heights?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Wofford Heights sees about 278 frost-free days — roughly Feb 24 through Nov 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 17 to Nov 15, about 243 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Wofford Heights?
The federal record around Wofford Heights is a meaningful one — 117 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (75), the nearest Brownfields record about 1.0 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Wofford Heights?
From about Oct 30 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 29 (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 29. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Wofford Heights's scale — its 8b band and its 278-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Wofford Heights'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 Wofford Heights’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Wofford Heights's own scale — its own ~278-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,097 acres it covers and 117 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Wofford Heights's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Wofford Heights's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Feb 24 and Nov 29 and the ~278-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 117 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Wofford Heights, the closest Brownfields record about 1.0 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Wofford Heights's boundary and the 4,097 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~278-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Wofford Heights sits in the Central California Foothills and Coastal Mountains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Wofford Heights's 4,097 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Kern County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Kern 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 Kern County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Wofford Heights's 4,097 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Wofford Heights you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,097 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 1.0 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 Wofford Heights-wide figureread your own land →