West Yellowstone, Montana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 3b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
A short list that earns its place here — zucchini, cranberry, cilantro, and okra — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in West Yellowstone, 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 West Yellowstone 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 West Yellowstone — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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West Yellowstone — the short answer
West Yellowstone, Montana: USDA zone 3b, about 70 days between hard freezes, across 581 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 3b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jun 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Aug 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~70
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 581 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 3b is West Yellowstone's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against West Yellowstone's 70-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in West Yellowstone
Each reading below is measured for West Yellowstone itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWest Yellowstone runs about 70 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
MeasuredWest Yellowstone sits in USDA hardiness zone 3b.
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 West Yellowstone is in
West Yellowstone sits in the Middle Rockies — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at West Yellowstone's own centroid rather than borrowed from Gallatin County.
What Grows in West Yellowstone
Every plant below cleared West Yellowstone's own zone 3b and its 70-day season. Each card opens that plant's Montana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in West Yellowstone?
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 May 16; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Jun 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Aug 22 — 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 West Yellowstone
Closest first, within ~10 miles of West Yellowstone. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 13S05E34BACD01Nitrate · 200 ft
- VALLEY MOTOR SUPPLY CO W YELLOWSTONEBrownfields · 550 ft
- ECONO MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- 13S05E34BBDC02Nitrate · 700 ft
- YELLOWSTONE ARCTIC YAMAHA ELECTRIC STUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- 13S05E34BAAC01Nitrate · 800 ft
- WEST SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- 13S05E34BDCA01Nitrate · 1000 ft
- WALKER CROSSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- TRAVELERS SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- WESTWOOD MOTELUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- RENDEZVOUS SNOWMOBILE RENTALSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from West Yellowstone'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 West Yellowstone.
Total Sites
112
within ~10 miles of West Yellowstone
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 brownfield sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of West Yellowstone
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of West Yellowstone
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around West Yellowstone, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 64 sites within ~10 miles of West Yellowstone. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in West Yellowstone
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 West Yellowstone average
Your land is one point inside West Yellowstone
Everything above resolves to West Yellowstone as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 581 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 West Yellowstone Average
West Yellowstone Average
- ●USDA Zones 3b, averaged across West Yellowstone
- ●One soil character for all of West Yellowstone
- ●Frost dates read at West Yellowstone's scale: Jun 13 to Aug 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not West Yellowstone's 3b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in West Yellowstone
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in West Yellowstone, Montana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that West Yellowstone averages can't show:
We read public map data around West Yellowstone — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the West Yellowstone average
How we know this about West Yellowstone
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 West Yellowstone’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 West Yellowstone
When does frost risk typically end in West Yellowstone?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in West Yellowstone typically lands around Jun 13, 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 Jul 4.
When is the first frost in West Yellowstone?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in West Yellowstone typically arrives around Aug 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Aug 8, so the watching starts about Jul 23 — about 70 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in West Yellowstone?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, West Yellowstone sees about 70 frost-free days — roughly Jun 13 through Aug 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Jul 4 to Aug 8, about 35 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in West Yellowstone?
The federal record around West Yellowstone shows 112 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (64), the nearest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile 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 West Yellowstone?
With about 70 frost-free days between hard freezes, West Yellowstone 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 98 to 126 days — and cold frames or low tunnels buy more. Starting transplants indoors ahead of the Jun 13 hard-freeze normal stretches the season without touching the calendar.
Everything above is measured at West Yellowstone's scale — its 3b band and its 70-day season. Your yard writes its own version of West Yellowstone'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 West Yellowstone’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at West Yellowstone's own scale — its own ~70-day season between 28°F freezes, the 581 acres it covers and 112 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- West Yellowstone's own USDA hardiness band, zones 3bUSDA PHZM 2023
- West Yellowstone's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Jun 13 and Aug 22 and the ~70-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 112 documented contamination sites on the federal record near West Yellowstone, the closest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- West Yellowstone's boundary and the 581 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 3b and a ~70-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at West Yellowstone's own centroid, the Middle RockiesUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so West Yellowstone's 581 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Gallatin County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Gallatin 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 Gallatin County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among West Yellowstone's 581 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of West Yellowstone you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 581 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile 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 West Yellowstone-wide figureread your own land →
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