Pine Creek, Montana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, cranberry, lavender, 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 Pine Creek, 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 Pine Creek 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 Pine Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Pine Creek — the short answer
Pine Creek, Montana: USDA zone 5a, about 145 days between hard freezes, across 518 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- May 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~145
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 518 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 5a is Pine Creek's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pine Creek's 145-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Pine Creek
Each reading below is measured for Pine Creek itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPine Creek runs about 145 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
MeasuredPine Creek 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 Pine Creek is in
Pine Creek sits in the Middle Rockies — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at Pine Creek's own centroid rather than borrowed from Park County.
What Grows in Pine Creek
Every plant below cleared Pine Creek's own zone 5a and its 145-day season. Each card opens that plant's Montana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Pine Creek?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Apr 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near May 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 1 — 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 Pine Creek
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Pine Creek. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PINE CREEK STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- BANSTRA CONSTRUCTIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- Sixty FiveMining · 3.2 mi
- LIVINGSTON CITY OFPFAS · 4.9 mi
- Oro-Y-PlateMining · 6.3 mi
- TRIPLE R RANCHUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.4 mi
- RubyMining · 6.5 mi
- Blue ManganeseMining · 6.6 mi
- Northern PacificMining · 6.7 mi
- ROYAL TETON RANCHUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.3 mi
- WARREN BLANCHARD LOGGINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 8.8 mi
- PATSY BRANDONUnderground Storage Tanks · 8.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pine Creek'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 Pine Creek.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Pine Creek
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Pine Creek
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Mine waste leaches heavy metals. Test for lead, arsenic and cadmium before growing food here.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
Check your specific parcel in Pine Creek
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 Pine Creek average
Your land is one point inside Pine Creek
Everything above resolves to Pine Creek as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 518 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 Pine Creek Average
Pine Creek Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Pine Creek
- ●One soil character for all of Pine Creek
- ●Frost dates read at Pine Creek's scale: May 9 to Oct 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pine Creek's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Pine Creek
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pine Creek, Montana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pine Creek averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pine Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pine Creek average
How we know this about Pine Creek
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 Pine Creek’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 Pine Creek
When does frost risk typically end in Pine Creek?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pine Creek typically lands around May 9, 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 30.
When is the first frost in Pine Creek?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Pine Creek typically arrives around Oct 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Sep 17, so the watching starts about Sep 1 — about 145 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Pine Creek?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pine Creek sees about 145 frost-free days — roughly May 9 through Oct 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 30 to Sep 17, about 110 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Pine Creek?
The federal record around Pine Creek shows 21 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (13), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 gardeners stretch the season in Pine Creek?
With about 145 frost-free days between hard freezes, Pine Creek 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 173 to 201 days — and cold frames or low tunnels buy more. Starting transplants indoors ahead of the May 9 hard-freeze normal stretches the season without touching the calendar.
Everything above is measured at Pine Creek's scale — its 5a band and its 145-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pine Creek'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 Pine Creek’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Pine Creek's own scale — its own ~145-day season between 28°F freezes, the 518 acres it covers and 21 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pine Creek's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pine Creek's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about May 9 and Oct 1 and the ~145-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 21 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Pine Creek, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Pine Creek's boundary and the 518 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~145-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Pine Creek's own centroid, the Middle RockiesUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Pine Creek's 518 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Park County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Park County
- The growing challenges every Montana grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Montana
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Park County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Pine Creek's 518 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Pine Creek you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 518 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Pine Creek-wide figureread your own land →
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