Gates, Oregon, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Gates, 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 Gates 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 Gates — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Gates — the short answer
Gates, Oregon: USDA zone 8b, about 276 days between hard freezes, across 413 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~276
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 413 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 8b is Gates's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Gates's 276-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Your town runs its own season
Gates's own 30-year record measures about 276 days between 28°F killing freezes — 33 days longer than Marion County's ~243. Both are measured records, not estimates.
That gap is the whole reason a county average can mislead here. Plant against Gates's ~276-day season rather than the county figure — and the sun, slope and cold-air drainage on your specific lot move it again.
NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS (1991–2020), 30-year daily minimum record. Both figures are measured records — this town’s own and its county’s. A town with no record of its own is absent here rather than estimated.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Gates
Each reading below is measured for Gates itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredGates runs about 276 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
MeasuredGates 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 Gates is in
Gates sits in the Cascades — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at Gates's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Marion County is mostly Willamette Valley. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Gates
Every plant below cleared Gates's own zone 8b and its 276-day season. Each card opens that plant's Oregon profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Gates?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 22 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 25 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
What's on the federal record near Gates
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Gates. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- AT&TUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- PHILLIPS 66 SITE - ABANDONEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- GATES ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- GATES PRIMARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- OREGON DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION DETROIT MAINTENANCE FACILITYBrownfields · 2.4 mi
- JONES FAMILY REVOCABLE TRUSTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- MILL CITY CENTRAL OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- MILL CITY SHELL STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- MILL CITY, CITY OFUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- DETROIT DAM PROJECTUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- MILL CITY MOBILUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- GATES UNION SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Gates'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 Gates.
Total Sites
52
within ~10 miles of Gates
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Gates
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Gates
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Gates, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Gates — Mining (16 sites) and Superfund (3 sites). 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.
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 Gates
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 Gates average
Your land is one point inside Gates
Everything above resolves to Gates as a whole — and this is a city whose own 30-year record already runs a season its county’s does not. Your parcel sits at one point inside even that. 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 city 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 Gates Average
Gates Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Gates
- ●One soil character for all of Gates
- ●Frost dates read at Gates's scale: Feb 22 to Nov 25
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Gates's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Gates
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Gates, Oregon — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Gates averages can't show:
We read public map data around Gates — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Gates average
How we know this about Gates
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Gates’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Gates
When does frost risk typically end in Gates?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Gates typically lands around Feb 22, 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 15.
When is the first frost in Gates?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Gates typically arrives around Nov 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 11, so the watching starts about Oct 26 — about 276 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Gates?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Gates sees about 276 frost-free days — roughly Feb 22 through Nov 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 15 to Nov 11, about 241 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Gates?
The federal record around Gates is a meaningful one — 52 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (26), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Gates?
From about Oct 26 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Nov 25 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Nov 25. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Gates's scale — its 8b band and its 276-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Gates'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 Gates’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Gates's own scale — its own ~276-day season between 28°F freezes, the 413 acres it covers and 52 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Gates's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Gates's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Feb 22 and Nov 25 and the ~276-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 52 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Gates, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Gates's boundary and the 413 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~276-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Gates sits in the Cascades — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Gates's 413 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Marion County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Marion County
- The growing challenges every Oregon grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Oregon
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Marion County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Gates's 413 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Gates you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 413 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Gates-wide figureread your own land →