Crested Butte, Colorado, sits in USDA hardiness zone 3b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, cranberry, cilantro, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Crested Butte, 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 Crested Butte 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 Crested Butte — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Crested Butte — the short answer
Crested Butte, Colorado: USDA zone 3b, about 105 days between hard freezes, across 555 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 3b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jun 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Sep 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~105
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 555 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 3b is Crested Butte's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Crested Butte's 105-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Crested Butte
Each reading below is measured for Crested Butte itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCrested Butte 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
MeasuredCrested Butte sits in USDA hardiness zone 3b.
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 Crested Butte is in
Crested Butte sits in the Southern Rockies — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at Crested Butte's own centroid rather than borrowed from Gunnison County.
What Grows in Crested Butte
Every plant below cleared Crested Butte's own zone 3b and its 105-day season. Each card opens that plant's Colorado profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Crested Butte?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around May 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Jun 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Sep 18 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. In a season this compact, fast finishers and cold-hardy greens do the late work, and garlic tucked in before the freeze repays you next summer.
What's on the federal record near Crested Butte
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Crested Butte. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Crested Butte Key TankUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- Crested Butte True ValueUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- CRESTED BUTTE TRANSFORMER SITESuperfund · 1200 ft
- SC01408602BCC-CRESTED BUTTE V.C.Nitrate · 1200 ft
- C B HardwareUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Gas Cafe One StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- CDOT Crested ButteUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- SC01408612BAC00Nitrate · 1.4 mi
- East River Regional Sanitation District Lift StatiUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- Emmon Mtn Mining & MillingMining · 1.6 mi
- Bulkley MineMining · 1.7 mi
- SC01308622BC00Nitrate · 1.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Crested Butte'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 Crested Butte.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Crested Butte
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Crested Butte
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Crested Butte, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Crested Butte — Mining (107 sites) and Superfund (3 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.
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 Crested Butte
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 Crested Butte average
Your land is one point inside Crested Butte
Everything above resolves to Crested Butte as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 555 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 Crested Butte Average
Crested Butte Average
- ●USDA Zones 3b, averaged across Crested Butte
- ●One soil character for all of Crested Butte
- ●Frost dates read at Crested Butte's scale: Jun 5 to Sep 18
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Crested Butte's 3b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Crested Butte
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Crested Butte, Colorado — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Crested Butte averages can't show:
We read public map data around Crested Butte — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Crested Butte average
How we know this about Crested Butte
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 Crested Butte’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 Crested Butte
When does frost risk typically end in Crested Butte?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Crested Butte typically lands around Jun 5, 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 26.
When is the first frost in Crested Butte?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Crested Butte typically arrives around Sep 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Sep 4, so the watching starts about Aug 19 — about 105 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Crested Butte?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Crested Butte sees about 105 frost-free days — roughly Jun 5 through Sep 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Jun 26 to Sep 4, about 70 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Crested Butte?
The federal record around Crested Butte runs heavier than most — 145 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (107), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Crested Butte?
With about 105 frost-free days between hard freezes, Crested Butte 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 5 hard-freeze normal stretches the season without touching the calendar.
Everything above is measured at Crested Butte's scale — its 3b band and its 105-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Crested Butte'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 Crested Butte’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Crested Butte's own scale — its own ~105-day season between 28°F freezes, the 555 acres it covers and 145 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Crested Butte's own USDA hardiness band, zones 3bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Crested Butte's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Jun 5 and Sep 18 and the ~105-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 145 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Crested Butte, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Crested Butte's boundary and the 555 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 3b and a ~105-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Crested Butte's own centroid, the Southern RockiesUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Crested Butte's 555 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Gunnison County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Gunnison County
- The growing challenges every Colorado grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Colorado
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Gunnison County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Crested Butte's 555 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Crested Butte you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 555 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Crested Butte-wide figureread your own land →