Clear Creek County, in Colorado, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
On paper, pumpkin, cranberry, lavender, and zucchini all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Clear Creek County lies within the Colorado High Country (Central Rockies) — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Clear Creek County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Clear Creek 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 Clear Creek County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Clear Creek County — the short answer
Clear Creek County, Colorado: USDA zone 5a, about 105 days between hard freezes, across 253K acres.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jun 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Sep 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~105
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 253K 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 5a is Clear Creek County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Clear Creek County's 105-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Clear Creek County
Across a year, Clear Creek County accumulates about 249 growing degree days above 50°F, about 1,583 fewer than the middle Colorado county — ahead of 4 of Colorado’s 64 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.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Clear Creek County
Across Clear Creek County, the ground is predominantly Inceptisols, where Legault, Ohman, and Cathedral are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally somewhat excessively drained with a cobbly silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.8–6.1, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Inceptisols
Drainage
Somewhat excessively drained
Hydric soils
4%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Clear Creek County
The USDA soil survey maps 57% of Clear Creek County as somewhat excessively drained — but another 34% drains differently: 23% well drained, 7% excessively drained.
Legault is the most extensive named soil at 6% of mapped acres, then Ohman (5%) and Cathedral (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 Clear Creek County
Each reading below is measured for Clear Creek 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 Clear Creek County are somewhat excessively drained, in hydrologic group D — 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 Clear Creek County runs about pH 5.8–6.1, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredClear Creek County runs about 105 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
MeasuredClear Creek County sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a.
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 Clear Creek County is in
Clear Creek County sits in the Southern Rockies — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Clear Creek County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Clear Creek County's own USDA zone 5a and its own 105-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 Colorado profile.
Is it too late to plant in Clear Creek County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around May 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Jun 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Sep 19 — 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 gets applied to farmland in Clear Creek County
USGS estimates 87 lb of Glyphosate on Clear Creek County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (41 lb) and Atrazine (29 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 Clear Creek County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Clear Creek County — 584 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 6 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Clear Creek 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 Clear Creek County
Closest first, across Clear Creek County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Sporting Times MineMining · 1.0 mi
- Barber-ElliottMining · 1.7 mi
- GEORGETOWN TOWN HALL PARKING LOTSuperfund · 1.7 mi
- Last ChanceMining · 1.7 mi
- MarshallMining · 1.8 mi
- Capitol PrizeMining · 1.8 mi
- Centennial,Barrel,Big I.Mining · 1.8 mi
- Centennial GroupMining · 1.8 mi
- War Baby MineMining · 1.8 mi
- Buckley GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- CLEAR CREEK COUNTY GOVERNMENTBrownfields · 1.8 mi
- CityMining · 1.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Clear Creek 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 Clear Creek County.
Total Sites
584
across Clear Creek County
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
6 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Clear Creek County
Severity Distribution
across Clear Creek County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Clear Creek County, Mining runs higher than the national average — 495 sites across Clear Creek County. 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.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Clear Creek 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 Clear Creek County average
Your land is one point inside Clear Creek County
Everything above resolves to Clear Creek County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 253K 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 Clear Creek County Average
Clear Creek County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Clear Creek County
- ●One soil character for all of Clear Creek County
- ●Frost dates read at Clear Creek County's scale: Jun 6 to Sep 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Clear Creek County's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Clear Creek County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Clear Creek County, Colorado — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Clear Creek County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Clear Creek County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Clear Creek County average
How we know this about Clear Creek 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 Clear Creek County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Clear Creek County
When does frost risk typically end in Clear Creek County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Clear Creek County typically lands around Jun 6, 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 Jun 27.
How long is the growing season in Clear Creek County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Clear Creek County sees about 105 frost-free days — roughly Jun 6 through Sep 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Jun 27 to Sep 5, about 70 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Clear Creek County?
The federal record around Clear Creek County runs heavier than most — 584 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (495), the nearest Mining record about 1.0 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 Clear Creek County?
With about 105 frost-free days between hard freezes, Clear Creek County 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 133 to 161 days — and cold frames or low tunnels buy more. Starting transplants indoors ahead of the Jun 6 hard-freeze normal stretches the season without touching the calendar.
Everything above is measured at Clear Creek County's scale — its 5a band and its 105-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Clear Creek 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 Colorado's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Clear Creek County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Clear Creek County's own scale — its own ~105-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 584 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Clear Creek County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Clear Creek County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~105-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Clear Creek CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 584 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Mining record about 1.0 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Clear Creek County's boundary and the 252,846 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~105-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Clear Creek County sitting wholly inside the Southern RockiesUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Clear Creek County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Colorado grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Colorado
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Clear Creek County — the ~105 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 Clear Creek County's 252,846 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 584 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 Clear Creek Countyread your own land →