El Jebel, Colorado, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
These conditions suit cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in El Jebel, 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 El Jebel 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 El Jebel — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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El Jebel — the short answer
El Jebel, Colorado: USDA zone 6a, about 153 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- May 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~153
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 El Jebel's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against El Jebel's 153-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in El Jebel
Each reading below is measured for El Jebel itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredEl Jebel runs about 153 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredEl Jebel 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 El Jebel is in
El Jebel sits in the Southern Rockies — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at El Jebel's own centroid rather than borrowed from Eagle County.
What Grows in El Jebel
Every plant below cleared El Jebel's own zone 6a and its 153-day season. Each card opens that plant's Colorado profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in El Jebel?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Apr 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near May 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 5 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Late in the year the fall bench takes over — quick greens, radishes, and garlic that repays you next summer.
What's on the federal record near El Jebel
Closest first, within ~10 miles of El Jebel. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Fitzsimmons Motor CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- El Jebel ShellUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Mt Sopris NurseryUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- J W EarthmovingUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- CITY MARKET 433Brownfields · 1.1 mi
- Willits General StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- BELLA DERMA, LLC DBA ASPEN DERMATOLOGYBrownfields · 1.4 mi
- CDOT El JebelUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- LEGAL TABS COBrownfields · 2.3 mi
- VALLEY COLLISIONBrownfields · 2.3 mi
- Valley Lumber CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- MIDVALLEY AMBULATORY SURGERY CENTERBrownfields · 2.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from El Jebel'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 El Jebel.
Total Sites
80
within ~10 miles of El Jebel
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of El Jebel
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of El Jebel
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around El Jebel, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 51 sites within ~10 miles of El Jebel. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in El Jebel
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 El Jebel average
Your land is one point inside El Jebel
Everything above resolves to El Jebel as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 El Jebel Average
El Jebel Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across El Jebel
- ●One soil character for all of El Jebel
- ●Frost dates read at El Jebel's scale: May 5 to Oct 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not El Jebel's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in El Jebel
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in El Jebel, Colorado — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that El Jebel averages can't show:
We read public map data around El Jebel — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the El Jebel average
How we know this about El Jebel
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 El Jebel’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 El Jebel
When does frost risk typically end in El Jebel?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in El Jebel typically lands around May 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 May 26.
When is the first frost in El Jebel?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in El Jebel typically arrives around Oct 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Sep 21, so the watching starts about Sep 5 — about 153 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in El Jebel?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, El Jebel sees about 153 frost-free days — roughly May 5 through Oct 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 26 to Sep 21, about 118 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in El Jebel?
The federal record around El Jebel shows 80 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (51), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in El Jebel?
From about Sep 5 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 Oct 5 (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 Oct 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at El Jebel's scale — its 6a band and its 153-day season. Your yard writes its own version of El Jebel'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 El Jebel’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at El Jebel's own scale — its own ~153-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,395 acres it covers and 80 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- El Jebel's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- El Jebel's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about May 5 and Oct 5 and the ~153-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 80 documented contamination sites on the federal record near El Jebel, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- El Jebel's boundary and the 3,395 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~153-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at El Jebel's own centroid, the Southern RockiesUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so El Jebel's 3,395 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Eagle County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Eagle 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 Eagle County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among El Jebel's 3,395 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of El Jebel you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,395 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 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 El Jebel-wide figureread your own land →