Gold Hill, Oregon, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Gold Hill, 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 Gold Hill 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 Gold Hill — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Gold Hill — the short answer
Gold Hill, Oregon: USDA zone 8b, about 247 days between hard freezes, across 488 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~247
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 488 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 Gold Hill's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Gold Hill's 247-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Gold Hill
Each reading below is measured for Gold Hill itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredGold Hill runs about 247 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredGold Hill 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 Gold Hill is in
Gold Hill sits in the Klamath Mountains/California High North Coast Range — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at Gold Hill's own centroid rather than borrowed from Jackson County.
What Grows in Gold Hill
Every plant below cleared Gold Hill's own zone 8b and its 247-day season. Each card opens that plant's Oregon profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Gold Hill?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 12 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
What's on the federal record near Gold Hill
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Gold Hill. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DMT LAB GOLD HILL Y 1Brownfields · 650 ft
- HANBY JR. HIGH SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- BI-MOR STATIONS #3Underground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- CITY SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- GOLD HILLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- BOB'S AUTOMOTIVE SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- SWEED MACHINERY INCBrownfields · 1500 ft
- SAWYER STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- USWEST - WOLF CREEK - 010169Underground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- PATRICK ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- 36S/03W-22ADB1Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- DARDANELLES COMMUNITY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Gold Hill'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 Gold Hill.
Total Sites
357
within ~10 miles of Gold Hill
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Gold Hill
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Gold Hill
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Gold Hill, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Gold Hill — Mining (71 sites) and CAFO (5 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check your specific parcel in Gold Hill
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 Gold Hill average
Your land is one point inside Gold Hill
Everything above resolves to Gold Hill as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 488 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 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 Gold Hill Average
Gold Hill Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Gold Hill
- ●One soil character for all of Gold Hill
- ●Frost dates read at Gold Hill's scale: Mar 10 to Nov 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Gold Hill's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Gold Hill
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Gold Hill, Oregon — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Gold Hill averages can't show:
We read public map data around Gold Hill — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Gold Hill average
How we know this about Gold Hill
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 Gold Hill’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 Gold Hill
When does frost risk typically end in Gold Hill?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Gold Hill typically lands around Mar 10, 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 31.
When is the first frost in Gold Hill?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Gold Hill typically arrives around Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 29, so the watching starts about Oct 13 — about 247 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Gold Hill?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Gold Hill sees about 247 frost-free days — roughly Mar 10 through Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 31 to Oct 29, about 212 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Gold Hill?
The federal record around Gold Hill runs heavier than most — 357 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (117), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.1 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Gold Hill?
From about Oct 13 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 12 (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 12. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Gold Hill's scale — its 8b band and its 247-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Gold Hill'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 Gold Hill’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Gold Hill's own scale — its own ~247-day season between 28°F freezes, the 488 acres it covers and 357 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Gold Hill's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Gold Hill's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 10 and Nov 12 and the ~247-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 357 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Gold Hill, the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Gold Hill's boundary and the 488 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~247-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Gold Hill's own centroid, the Klamath Mountains/California High North Coast RangeUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Gold Hill's 488 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Jackson County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Jackson 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 Jackson County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Gold Hill's 488 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Gold Hill you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 488 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles 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 Gold Hill-wide figureread your own land →
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