Gopher Flats, Oregon, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, pawpaw, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Gopher Flats, 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 Gopher Flats 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 Gopher Flats — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Gopher Flats — the short answer
Gopher Flats, Oregon: USDA zone 7a, about 207 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~207
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 7a is Gopher Flats's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Gopher Flats's 207-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Gopher Flats
Each reading below is measured for Gopher Flats itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredGopher Flats runs about 207 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
MeasuredGopher Flats sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Gopher Flats is in
Gopher Flats sits in the Columbia Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Gopher Flats's own centroid rather than borrowed from Umatilla County.
What Grows in Gopher Flats
Every plant below cleared Gopher Flats's own zone 7a and its 207-day season. Each card opens that plant's Oregon profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Gopher Flats?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 5; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 26 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
What's on the federal record near Gopher Flats
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Gopher Flats. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FLETCHER PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- PENDLETON SOC - 010844Underground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- ODOT R-5 ORO DELL BRIDGEBrownfields · 1.7 mi
- CTUIR FIELD STATIONBrownfields · 1.7 mi
- UMATILLA ELECTRIC CO-OP ASSOCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- PENDLETON SUBSTATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- DAVIS EASTERN SUPPLY COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- LINDELL AUTO SALVAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- SHARON OIL INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- 02N/33E-09DAA3Nitrate · 1.9 mi
- UNITED PACIFIC #7180Underground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- MELODY MUFFLERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Gopher Flats'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 Gopher Flats.
Total Sites
191
within ~10 miles of Gopher Flats
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Gopher Flats
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Gopher Flats
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Gopher Flats, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 119 sites within ~10 miles of Gopher Flats. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Gopher Flats
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 Gopher Flats average
Your land is one point inside Gopher Flats
Everything above resolves to Gopher Flats as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 town 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 Gopher Flats Average
Gopher Flats Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Gopher Flats
- ●One soil character for all of Gopher Flats
- ●Frost dates read at Gopher Flats's scale: Apr 2 to Oct 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Gopher Flats's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Gopher Flats
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Gopher Flats, Oregon — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Gopher Flats averages can't show:
We read public map data around Gopher Flats — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Gopher Flats average
How we know this about Gopher Flats
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Gopher Flats’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 town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-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 Gopher Flats
When does frost risk typically end in Gopher Flats?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Gopher Flats typically lands around Apr 2, 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 Apr 23.
When is the first frost in Gopher Flats?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Gopher Flats typically arrives around Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 12, so the watching starts about Sep 26 — about 207 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Gopher Flats?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Gopher Flats sees about 207 frost-free days — roughly Apr 2 through Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 23 to Oct 12, about 172 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Gopher Flats?
The federal record around Gopher Flats is a meaningful one — 191 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (119), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.0 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Gopher Flats?
From about Sep 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 Oct 26 (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 Oct 26. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Gopher Flats's scale — its 7a band and its 207-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Gopher Flats'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 Gopher Flats’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Gopher Flats's own scale — its own ~207-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,348 acres it covers and 191 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Gopher Flats's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Gopher Flats's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 2 and Oct 26 and the ~207-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 191 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Gopher Flats, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.0 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Gopher Flats's boundary and the 1,348 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~207-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Gopher Flats's own centroid, the Columbia PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Gopher Flats's 1,348 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Umatilla County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Umatilla 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 Umatilla County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Gopher Flats's 1,348 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Gopher Flats you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,348 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.0 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 Gopher Flats-wide figureread your own land →