Josephine County, in Oregon, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
On paper, cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Josephine County lies within the Rogue Valley — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Josephine County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Josephine 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 Josephine County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Josephine County — the short answer
Josephine County, Oregon: USDA zone 8a, about 199 days between hard freezes, across 1.0M acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~199
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 1.0M 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 8a is Josephine County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Josephine County's 199-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Josephine County
Across a year, Josephine County accumulates about 2,267 growing degree days above 50°F, about 415 more than the middle Oregon county — ahead of 30 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 Josephine County
Across Josephine County, the ground is predominantly Inceptisols, where Beekman, Vermisa, and Josephine are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a gravelly loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.1–6.3, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Inceptisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
4%
Hydric soils
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Josephine County
The USDA soil survey maps 73% of Josephine County as well drained — but another 26% drains differently: 19% somewhat excessively drained, 4% moderately well drained.
Beekman is the most extensive named soil at 16% of mapped acres, then Vermisa (12%) and Josephine (10%).
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 Josephine County
Each reading below is measured for Josephine 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 Josephine 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 Josephine County runs about pH 6.1–6.3, 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
MeasuredJosephine County runs about 199 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
MeasuredJosephine County sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
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 Josephine County is in
Josephine County sits in the Klamath Mountains/California High North Coast Range — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Josephine County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Josephine County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 199-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 Josephine 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 Mar 17; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 14 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 30 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Late in the year the fall bench takes over — quick greens, radishes, and garlic that repays you next summer.
Documented around Josephine County
- monarch butterfly21 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Josephine County
USGS estimates 3,906 lb of Glyphosate on Josephine County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (778 lb) and Metolachlor-s (584 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 Josephine County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Josephine County — 1,167 documented sites across 8 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 7 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Josephine 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 Josephine County
Closest first, across Josephine County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Sally AnnMining · 1.2 mi
- Buckeye MineMining · 1.7 mi
- Queen MineMining · 1.9 mi
- Six-MileMining · 2.0 mi
- Name UnknownMining · 2.0 mi
- Black HawkMining · 2.0 mi
- Custom MillMining · 2.0 mi
- F St. Chrome MillMining · 2.0 mi
- AlthouseMining · 2.0 mi
- Lucky FridayMining · 2.0 mi
- Glory HoMining · 2.0 mi
- JohnsMining · 2.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Josephine 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 Josephine County.
Total Sites
1,167
across Josephine County
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
7 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Severity Distribution
across Josephine County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Josephine County, Mining runs higher than the national average — 841 sites across Josephine County. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Josephine 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 Josephine County average
Your land is one point inside Josephine County
Everything above resolves to Josephine County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 1.0M 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 Josephine County Average
Josephine County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Josephine County
- ●One soil character for all of Josephine County
- ●Frost dates read at Josephine County's scale: Apr 14 to Oct 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Josephine County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Josephine County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Josephine County, Oregon — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Josephine County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Josephine County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Josephine County average
How we know this about Josephine 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 Josephine County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Josephine County
When does frost risk typically end in Josephine County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Josephine County typically lands around Apr 14, 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 5.
How long is the growing season in Josephine County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Josephine County sees about 199 frost-free days — roughly Apr 14 through Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 5 to Oct 16, about 164 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Josephine County?
The federal record around Josephine County runs heavier than most — 1,167 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (841), the nearest Mining record about 1.2 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 Josephine County's scale — its 8a band and its 199-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Josephine 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 Josephine County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Josephine County's own scale — its own ~199-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 1,167 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Josephine County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Josephine County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~199-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Josephine CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 1,167 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Mining record about 1.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Josephine County's boundary and the 1,048,734 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~199-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Josephine County sitting wholly inside the Klamath Mountains/California High North Coast RangeUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Josephine County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Josephine 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 Josephine County — the ~199 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 Josephine County's 1,048,734 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 1,167 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 Josephine Countyread your own land →