St. Pierre, Montana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 4b — 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, cilantro, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in St. Pierre, 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 St. Pierre 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 St. Pierre — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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St. Pierre — the short answer
St. Pierre, Montana: USDA zone 4b, about 131 days between hard freezes, across 5K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 4b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- May 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Sep 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~131
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 5K 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 4b is St. Pierre's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against St. Pierre's 131-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in St. Pierre
Each reading below is measured for St. Pierre itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSt. Pierre runs about 131 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
MeasuredSt. Pierre 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 St. Pierre is in
St. Pierre sits in the Middle Rockies — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at St. Pierre's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Hill County is mostly Northwestern Glaciated Plains. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in St. Pierre
Every plant below cleared St. Pierre's own zone 4b and its 131-day season. Each card opens that plant's Montana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in St. Pierre?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Apr 19; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near May 17 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Sep 25 — 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 St. Pierre
Closest first, within ~10 miles of St. Pierre. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- VILLAGE GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- FRANK & OREL M SHERERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- GRAIN & CATTLE CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- SQUAW BUTTE MICROWAVE SITEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- LAMERES STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- OLD CORNER GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- ORDEAN SOLBERGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- ROCKY BOY AGENCY SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- ROCKY BOY ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- OATS ROAD DRUMSSuperfund · 2.1 mi
- Rocky Boy AreaMining · 6.1 mi
- UnnamedMining · 7.1 mi
2 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from St. Pierre'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 St. Pierre.
Total Sites
16
within ~10 miles of St. Pierre
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of St. Pierre
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of St. Pierre
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.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in St. Pierre
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 St. Pierre average
Your land is one point inside St. Pierre
Everything above resolves to St. Pierre as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 5K 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 St. Pierre Average
St. Pierre Average
- ●USDA Zones 4b, averaged across St. Pierre
- ●One soil character for all of St. Pierre
- ●Frost dates read at St. Pierre's scale: May 17 to Sep 25
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not St. Pierre's 4b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in St. Pierre
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in St. Pierre, Montana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that St. Pierre averages can't show:
We read public map data around St. Pierre — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the St. Pierre average
How we know this about St. Pierre
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 St. Pierre’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 St. Pierre
When does frost risk typically end in St. Pierre?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in St. Pierre typically lands around May 17, 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 7.
When is the first frost in St. Pierre?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in St. Pierre typically arrives around Sep 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Sep 11, so the watching starts about Aug 26 — about 131 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in St. Pierre?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, St. Pierre sees about 131 frost-free days — roughly May 17 through Sep 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Jun 7 to Sep 11, about 96 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in St. Pierre?
The federal record around St. Pierre is a meaningful one — 16 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (9), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.2 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 St. Pierre?
With about 131 frost-free days between hard freezes, St. Pierre 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 159 to 187 days — and cold frames or low tunnels buy more. Starting transplants indoors ahead of the May 17 hard-freeze normal stretches the season without touching the calendar.
Everything above is measured at St. Pierre's scale — its 4b band and its 131-day season. Your yard writes its own version of St. Pierre'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 St. Pierre’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at St. Pierre's own scale — its own ~131-day season between 28°F freezes, the 5,169 acres it covers and 16 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- St. Pierre's own USDA hardiness band, zones 4bUSDA PHZM 2023
- St. Pierre's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about May 17 and Sep 25 and the ~131-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 16 documented contamination sites on the federal record near St. Pierre, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- St. Pierre's boundary and the 5,169 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 4b and a ~131-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- St. Pierre sits in the Middle Rockies — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so St. Pierre's 5,169 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Hill County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Hill 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 Hill County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among St. Pierre's 5,169 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of St. Pierre you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 5,169 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.2 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 St. Pierre-wide figureread your own land →
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