Baker County, in Oregon, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
The conditions favor cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Baker County lies within the Northeast Oregon Mountain Valleys — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Baker County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Baker 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 Baker County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Baker County — the short answer
Baker County, Oregon: USDA zone 6b, about 150 days between hard freezes, across 2.0M acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- May 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~150
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 2.0M 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 6b is Baker County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Baker County's 150-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Baker County
Across a year, Baker County accumulates about 1,432 growing degree days above 50°F, about 420 fewer than the middle Oregon county — ahead of 12 of Oregon’s 36 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 Baker County
Across Baker County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Ateron, Limberjim, and Anatone are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a ashy silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.5–7.0, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
0%
Hydric soils
2%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Baker County
The USDA soil survey maps 94% of Baker County as well drained — but another 4% drains differently: 2% somewhat poorly drained, 1% poorly drained.
Ateron is the most extensive named soil at 4% of mapped acres, then Limberjim (4%) and Anatone (3%).
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 Baker County
Each reading below is measured for Baker 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 Baker 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 Baker County runs about pH 6.5–7.0, 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
MeasuredBaker County runs about 150 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
MeasuredBaker County sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Baker County is in
Baker County sits in the Blue Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Baker County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Baker County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 150-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 Oregon profile.
Is it too late to plant in Baker County?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Apr 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near May 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 3 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
Documented around Baker County
- monarch butterfly16 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Baker County
USGS estimates 26,004 lb of Glyphosate on Baker County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metribuzin (9,808 lb) and 2,4-d (5,614 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 Baker County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Baker County — 486 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 12 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Baker 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 Baker County
Closest first, across Baker County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BAKER SANITARY LANDFILL SITEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- TRIANGLE FARM SUPPLY INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- PHILLIPS 66 COMPANY #007475Underground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- Virtue MineMining · 4.1 mi
- Nitzlander RanchMining · 4.6 mi
- Lucky StrikeMining · 5.4 mi
- Geo. F. Beiber PropertyMining · 6.0 mi
- Gray EagleMining · 6.2 mi
- Hidden TreasureMining · 6.5 mi
- Hidden Treasure MineMining · 6.7 mi
- Copperd ProspectMining · 7.0 mi
- Copper ProspectMining · 7.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Baker 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 Baker County.
Sources Checked
across Baker County
Severity Distribution
across Baker County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Baker County, two things run higher than the national average across Baker County — Mining (326 sites) and Superfund (12 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.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Baker 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 Baker County average
Your land is one point inside Baker County
Everything above resolves to Baker County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 2.0M 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 Baker County Average
Baker County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Baker County
- ●One soil character for all of Baker County
- ●Frost dates read at Baker County's scale: May 6 to Oct 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Baker County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Baker County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Baker County, Oregon — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Baker County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Baker County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Baker County average
How we know this about Baker 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 Baker County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Baker County
When does frost risk typically end in Baker County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Baker County typically lands around May 6, 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 27.
How long is the growing season in Baker County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Baker County sees about 150 frost-free days — roughly May 6 through Oct 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 27 to Sep 19, about 115 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Baker County?
The federal record around Baker County runs heavier than most — 486 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (326), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.8 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 Baker County's scale — its 6b band and its 150-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Baker 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 Oregon's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Baker County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Baker County's own scale — its own ~150-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 486 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Baker County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Baker County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~150-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Baker CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 486 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.8 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Baker County's boundary and the 1,963,497 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~150-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Baker County sitting wholly inside the Blue MountainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Baker County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Baker County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Oregon grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Oregon
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Baker County — the ~150 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 Baker County's 1,963,497 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 486 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 Baker Countyread your own land →