Red Feather Lakes, Colorado, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Red Feather Lakes, 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 Red Feather Lakes 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 Red Feather Lakes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Red Feather Lakes — the short answer
Red Feather Lakes, Colorado: USDA zone 5b, about 133 days between hard freezes, across 6K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- May 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Sep 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~133
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 6K 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 5b is Red Feather Lakes's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Red Feather Lakes's 133-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Red Feather Lakes
Each reading below is measured for Red Feather Lakes itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredRed Feather Lakes runs about 133 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
MeasuredRed Feather Lakes sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b.
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 Red Feather Lakes is in
Red Feather Lakes sits in the Southern Rockies — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at Red Feather Lakes's own centroid rather than borrowed from Larimer County.
What Grows in Red Feather Lakes
Every plant below cleared Red Feather Lakes's own zone 5b and its 133-day season. Each card opens that plant's Colorado profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Red Feather Lakes?
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 20; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near May 18 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Sep 28 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Even here the calendar’s edges hold value: thirty-day greens late in the window, then garlic and a rested bed for spring.
What's on the federal record near Red Feather Lakes
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Red Feather Lakes. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Hidden Lakes Golf & Trout ClubUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- CAMPBELL DEVELOPMENT INCBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- Former Husky StaUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Red Feather Trading PostUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Hill Top General StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Rainbow LodeMining · 1.1 mi
- Copper King MineMining · 5.2 mi
- Iron King MineMining · 5.2 mi
- Manhattan DistrictMining · 5.4 mi
- Ben Delatour Scout RanchUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.7 mi
- Red Feather Lakes Work CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.7 mi
- Free Gold MineMining · 6.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Red Feather Lakes'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 Red Feather Lakes.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Red Feather Lakes
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Red Feather Lakes
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Red Feather Lakes, Mining runs higher than the national average — 23 sites within ~10 miles of Red Feather Lakes. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Red Feather Lakes
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 Red Feather Lakes average
Your land is one point inside Red Feather Lakes
Everything above resolves to Red Feather Lakes as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 6K 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 Red Feather Lakes Average
Red Feather Lakes Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Red Feather Lakes
- ●One soil character for all of Red Feather Lakes
- ●Frost dates read at Red Feather Lakes's scale: May 18 to Sep 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Red Feather Lakes's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Red Feather Lakes
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Red Feather Lakes, Colorado — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Red Feather Lakes averages can't show:
We read public map data around Red Feather Lakes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Red Feather Lakes average
How we know this about Red Feather Lakes
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 Red Feather Lakes’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 Red Feather Lakes
When does frost risk typically end in Red Feather Lakes?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Red Feather Lakes typically lands around May 18, 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 8.
When is the first frost in Red Feather Lakes?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Red Feather Lakes typically arrives around Sep 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Sep 14, so the watching starts about Aug 29 — about 133 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Red Feather Lakes?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Red Feather Lakes sees about 133 frost-free days — roughly May 18 through Sep 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Jun 8 to Sep 14, about 98 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Red Feather Lakes?
The federal record around Red Feather Lakes is a meaningful one — 35 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (23), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 gardeners stretch the season in Red Feather Lakes?
With about 133 frost-free days between hard freezes, Red Feather Lakes 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 161 to 189 days — and cold frames or low tunnels buy more. Starting transplants indoors ahead of the May 18 hard-freeze normal stretches the season without touching the calendar.
Everything above is measured at Red Feather Lakes's scale — its 5b band and its 133-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Red Feather Lakes'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 Red Feather Lakes’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Red Feather Lakes's own scale — its own ~133-day season between 28°F freezes, the 5,834 acres it covers and 35 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Red Feather Lakes's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Red Feather Lakes's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about May 18 and Sep 28 and the ~133-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 35 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Red Feather Lakes, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Red Feather Lakes's boundary and the 5,834 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~133-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Red Feather Lakes's own centroid, the Southern RockiesUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Red Feather Lakes's 5,834 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Larimer County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Larimer 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 Larimer County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Red Feather Lakes's 5,834 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Red Feather Lakes you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 5,834 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Red Feather Lakes-wide figureread your own land →
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