Storey County, in Nevada, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, pawpaw, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Storey County lies within the Truckee Meadows / Reno — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Storey County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Storey 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 Storey County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Storey County — the short answer
Storey County, Nevada: USDA zone 7a, about 170 days between hard freezes, across 169K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- May 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~170
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 169K 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 7a is Storey County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Storey County's 170-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Storey County
Across a year, Storey County accumulates about 2,143 growing degree days above 50°F, right at the Nevada middle — ahead of 8 of Nevada’s 17 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 Storey County
Across Storey County, the ground is predominantly Aridisols, where Ceejay, Doorkiss, and Ister are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a very gravelly loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.0–7.5, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Aridisols
Drainage
Well drained
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Storey County
The USDA soil survey maps 97% of Storey County as well drained — but another 2% drains differently: 1% somewhat excessively drained.
Ceejay is the most extensive named soil at 21% of mapped acres, then Doorkiss (20%) and Ister (12%).
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 Storey County
Each reading below is measured for Storey 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 Storey County are well drained, in hydrologic group D — 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 Storey County runs about pH 7.0–7.5, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredStorey County runs about 170 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
MeasuredStorey County sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Storey County is in
Storey County sits in the Central Basin and Range — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Storey County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Storey County's own USDA zone 7a and its own 170-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 Nevada profile.
Is it too late to plant in Storey County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. 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 22 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Even past midsummer there is room for a true fall garden here, and garlic planted near the close carries the momentum into next year.
Documented around Storey County
- monarch butterfly8 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Storey County
USGS estimates 452 lb of 2,4-d on Storey County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Triclopyr (249 lb) and Dicamba (167 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 Storey County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Storey County — 179 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Storey County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Storey County
Closest first, across Storey County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Blackhawk Mine AreaMining · 4.5 mi
- 083 N18 E21 36CCBD1 Cottonwood Spring WellNitrate · 5.1 mi
- TRI GENERAL IMPROVEMENT DISTRICTPFAS · 5.2 mi
- Blackhawk MineMining · 5.3 mi
- SIERRA STONE QUARRYBrownfields · 5.6 mi
- REDWOOD MATERIALS - BATTERY MATERIALS CAMPUS 1Toxics Release Inventory · 5.6 mi
- REDWOOD MATERIALS - BATTERY MATERIALS CAMPUS 1Brownfields · 5.6 mi
- BMC1Toxics Release Inventory · 5.8 mi
- US ORDNANCEBrownfields · 6.1 mi
- ZULILYBrownfields · 6.2 mi
- Lockwood Regional LandfillUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.2 mi
- SWITCH LTDBrownfields · 6.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Storey 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 Storey County.
Sources Checked
across Storey County
Severity Distribution
across Storey County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Storey County, two things run higher than the national average across Storey County — Mining (46 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (17 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Storey 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 Storey County average
Your land is one point inside Storey County
Everything above resolves to Storey County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 169K 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 Storey County Average
Storey County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Storey County
- ●One soil character for all of Storey County
- ●Frost dates read at Storey County's scale: May 5 to Oct 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Storey County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Storey County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Storey County, Nevada — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Storey County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Storey County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Storey County average
How we know this about Storey 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 Storey County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Storey County
When does frost risk typically end in Storey County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Storey 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 Storey County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Storey County sees about 170 frost-free days — roughly May 5 through Oct 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 26 to Oct 8, about 135 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Storey County?
The federal record around Storey County runs heavier than most — 179 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (54), the nearest Mining record about 4.5 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
Everything above is measured at Storey County's scale — its 7a band and its 170-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Storey 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 Nevada's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Storey County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Storey County's own scale — its own ~170-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 179 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Storey County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Storey County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~170-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Storey CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 179 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Mining record about 4.5 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Storey County's boundary and the 168,832 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~170-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Storey County sitting wholly inside the Central Basin and RangeUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Storey County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Storey County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Nevada grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Nevada
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Storey County — the ~170 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 Storey County's 168,832 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 179 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 Storey Countyread your own land →