Clatsop County, in Oregon, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Clatsop County lies within the Oregon Coast (Maritime Cool-Summer Strip) and the Pacific Northwest — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Clatsop County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Clatsop 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 Clatsop County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Clatsop County — the short answer
Clatsop County, Oregon: USDA zone 8b, about 263 days between hard freezes, across 530K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~263
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 530K 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 8b is Clatsop County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Clatsop County's 263-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Clatsop County
Across a year, Clatsop County accumulates about 1,285 growing degree days above 50°F, about 567 fewer than the middle Oregon county — ahead of 5 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 Clatsop County
Across Clatsop County, the ground is predominantly Inceptisols, where Rinearson, Skipanon, and Templeton are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.6–5.0, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Inceptisols
Drainage
Well drained
Hydric soils
8%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Clatsop County
The USDA soil survey maps 78% of Clatsop County as well drained — but another 14% drains differently: 5% very poorly drained, 4% moderately well drained.
Rinearson is the most extensive named soil at 14% of mapped acres, then Skipanon (12%) and Templeton (9%).
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 Clatsop County
Each reading below is measured for Clatsop 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 Clatsop County are well drained, in hydrologic group B — 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 Clatsop County runs about pH 4.6–5.0, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredClatsop County runs about 263 days between hard freezes — close to year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredClatsop County sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b.
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 Clatsop County is in
Clatsop County sits in the Coast Range — EPA Level III, inside the wider Marine West Coast Forest. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Clatsop County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Clatsop County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 263-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 Clatsop 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 Feb 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 4 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 22 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. In a climate this gentle, “too late” hardly applies — the question becomes which crops prefer the cooler months ahead.
Documented around Clatsop County
- monarch butterfly8 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Clatsop County
USGS estimates 1,664 lb of Glyphosate on Clatsop County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor-s (837 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (837 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 Clatsop County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Clatsop County — 242 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 7 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Clatsop County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Clatsop County
Closest first, across Clatsop County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- OLNEY SCHOOL DISTRICT #11-CUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
- OLNEY GENERAL STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.8 mi
- ROAD DEPARTMENT - JEWELL SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.4 mi
- ASTORIA, CITY OFPFAS · 7.5 mi
- CITY OF WARRENTON OLD WATER PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 8.0 mi
- SEASIDE WATER DEPARTMENTPFAS · 8.2 mi
- NW NATURALBrownfields · 8.7 mi
- COLUMBIA BANK OREO - MERCIERUnderground Storage Tanks · 8.8 mi
- TUBBY'S TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 8.8 mi
- ODOT HUMBUG MAINTENANCE STATIONBrownfields · 8.8 mi
- WEYERHAEUSER CO.Brownfields · 9.7 mi
- BAYVIEW TRANSIT MIX INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 9.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Clatsop 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 Clatsop County.
Sources Checked
across Clatsop County
Severity Distribution
across Clatsop County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Clatsop County, two things run higher than the national average across Clatsop County — Superfund (7 sites) and PFAS (3 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Clatsop 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 Clatsop County average
Your land is one point inside Clatsop County
Everything above resolves to Clatsop County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 530K 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 Clatsop County Average
Clatsop County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Clatsop County
- ●One soil character for all of Clatsop County
- ●Frost dates read at Clatsop County's scale: Mar 4 to Nov 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Clatsop County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Clatsop County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Clatsop County, Oregon — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Clatsop County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Clatsop County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Clatsop County average
How we know this about Clatsop 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 Clatsop County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Clatsop County
When does frost risk typically end in Clatsop County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Clatsop County typically lands around Mar 4, 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 Mar 25.
How long is the growing season in Clatsop County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Clatsop County sees about 263 frost-free days — roughly Mar 4 through Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 25 to Nov 8, about 228 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Clatsop County?
The federal record around Clatsop County is a meaningful one — 242 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (165), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 4.5 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.
Everything above is measured at Clatsop County's scale — its 8b band and its 263-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Clatsop 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 Clatsop County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Clatsop County's own scale — its own ~263-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 242 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Clatsop County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Clatsop County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~263-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Clatsop CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 242 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 4.5 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Clatsop County's boundary and the 530,074 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~263-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Clatsop County sitting wholly inside the Coast RangeUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Clatsop County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Clatsop 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 Clatsop County — the ~263 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 Clatsop County's 530,074 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 242 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 Clatsop Countyread your own land →