Pondera County, in Montana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 4b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, cranberry, turkish rocket, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Pondera County lies within the Rocky Mountain Front / Great Falls Chinook Belt — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Pondera County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Pondera 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 Pondera County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Pondera County — the short answer
Pondera County, Montana: USDA zone 4b, about 153 days between hard freezes, across 1.0M acres.
- USDA zone
- 4b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- May 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~153
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 1.0M 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 4b is Pondera County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pondera County's 153-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Pondera County
Across a year, Pondera County accumulates about 1,347 growing degree days above 50°F, about 323 fewer than the middle Montana county — ahead of 22 of Montana’s 56 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 Pondera County
Across Pondera County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Scobey, Kevin, and Beanlake are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a clay loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.0–7.9, slightly alkaline. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
0%
Hydric soils
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Pondera County
The USDA soil survey maps 95% of Pondera County as well drained — but another 3% drains differently: 1% poorly drained, 1% somewhat excessively drained.
Scobey is the most extensive named soil at 12% of mapped acres, then Kevin (10%) and Beanlake (7%).
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 Pondera County
Each reading below is measured for Pondera 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 Pondera County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — 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 Pondera County runs about pH 7.0–7.9, on the alkaline side.
Many vegetables cope, but acid-lovers like blueberries struggle, and iron and manganese lock up above about pH 7.5 — leaves yellow between the veins even in rich soil.
Elemental sulfur and generous organic matter lower pH slowly for the beds that need it; test first so you add only what the soil actually calls for.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredPondera County 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
MeasuredPondera County sits in USDA hardiness zone 4b.
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 Pondera County is in
Pondera County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Northwestern Glaciated Plains (86%) and Canadian Rockies (14%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Pondera County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Pondera County's own USDA zone 4b and its own 153-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 Montana profile.
Is it too late to plant in Pondera County?
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 gets applied to farmland in Pondera County
USGS estimates 492,048 lb of Glyphosate on Pondera County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (128,859 lb) and Dicamba (66,424 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 Pondera County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Pondera County — 146 documented sites across 4 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 7 concentrated animal feeding operations. Large-scale animal operations that can contaminate soil and groundwater with nitrates and pathogens.
The federal record across Pondera County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Pondera County
Closest first, across Pondera County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MALMSTROM AFB T 42Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- 28N05W22CA 01Nitrate · 4.2 mi
- 29N04W08CCD 01Nitrate · 4.5 mi
- BUS BARN GARAGESUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.4 mi
- MIKES EXXON SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.6 mi
- AT & T COMMUNICATIONS VALIER TD2Underground Storage Tanks · 5.6 mi
- VALIER AIRPORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.6 mi
- CHARLES R KINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.6 mi
- B & B ENTERPRISES INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.6 mi
- MALMSTROM AFB T 0Underground Storage Tanks · 5.6 mi
- MALMSTROM AFB P 6Underground Storage Tanks · 5.6 mi
- SWANK ENTERPRISESUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pondera 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 Pondera County.
Total Sites
146
across Pondera County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
7 concentrated animal feeding operations
Sources Checked
across Pondera County
Severity Distribution
across Pondera County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Pondera County, two things run higher than the national average across Pondera County — CAFO (7 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (106 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Pondera 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 Pondera County average
Your land is one point inside Pondera County
Everything above resolves to Pondera County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 1.0M 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 Pondera County Average
Pondera County Average
- ●USDA Zones 4b, averaged across Pondera County
- ●One soil character for all of Pondera County
- ●Frost dates read at Pondera County's scale: May 5 to Oct 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pondera County's 4b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Pondera County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pondera County, Montana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pondera County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pondera County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pondera County average
How we know this about Pondera 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 Pondera County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Pondera County
When does frost risk typically end in Pondera County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pondera County 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.
How long is the growing season in Pondera County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pondera County 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 Pondera County?
The federal record around Pondera County shows 146 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (106), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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.
Everything above is measured at Pondera County's scale — its 4b band and its 153-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pondera 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 Montana's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Pondera County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Pondera County's own scale — its own ~153-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 146 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pondera County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 4bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pondera County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~153-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Pondera CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 146 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Pondera County's boundary and the 1,039,722 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 4b and a ~153-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Pondera County spans, Northwestern Glaciated Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Pondera County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Montana grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Montana
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Pondera County — the ~153 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 Pondera County's 1,039,722 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 146 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 Pondera Countyread your own land →