Mount Hood, Oregon, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
These conditions suit cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Mount Hood, 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 Mount Hood 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 Mount Hood — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Mount Hood — the short answer
Mount Hood, Oregon: USDA zone 7b, about 203 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- 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
- ~203
- 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 7b is Mount Hood's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Mount Hood's 203-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Mount Hood
Each reading below is measured for Mount Hood itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMount Hood runs about 203 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
MeasuredMount Hood sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Mount Hood is in
Mount Hood sits in the Eastern Cascades Slopes and Foothills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at Mount Hood's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Hood River County is mostly Cascades. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Mount Hood
Every plant below cleared Mount Hood's own zone 7b and its 203-day season. Each card opens that plant's Oregon profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Mount Hood?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (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.
Documented around Mount Hood
Survey cells within 31 miles of Mount Hood checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 539 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Mount Hood
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Mount Hood. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MT HOOD MOTORS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- MT HOOD COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- MT HOOD SHELLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- ZEMAN, LOUIS SRUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- COUNTY SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- US FS PARKDALE WORK CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- PARKDALE LUMBERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- UPPER VALLEY AUTOMOTIVEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- PARKDALE RFPDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- PARKDALE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- JIM'S MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- MIDDLE FORK IRRIGATION DISTRICTUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Mount Hood'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 Mount Hood.
Total Sites
58
within ~10 miles of Mount Hood
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Mount Hood
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Mount Hood
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Mount Hood, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Mount Hood — Underground Storage Tanks (42 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (4 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Mount Hood
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 Mount Hood average
Your land is one point inside Mount Hood
Everything above resolves to Mount Hood 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 Mount Hood Average
Mount Hood Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Mount Hood
- ●One soil character for all of Mount Hood
- ●Frost dates read at Mount Hood's scale: Apr 6 to Oct 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Mount Hood's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Mount Hood
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Mount Hood, Oregon — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Mount Hood averages can't show:
We read public map data around Mount Hood — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mount Hood average
How we know this about Mount Hood
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 Mount Hood’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 Mount Hood
When does frost risk typically end in Mount Hood?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Mount Hood typically lands around Apr 6, 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 27.
When is the first frost in Mount Hood?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Mount Hood 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 203 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Mount Hood?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Mount Hood sees about 203 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 12, about 168 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Mount Hood?
The federal record around Mount Hood is a meaningful one — 58 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (42), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Mount Hood?
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 Mount Hood's scale — its 7b band and its 203-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Mount Hood'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 Mount Hood’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Mount Hood's own scale — its own ~203-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,228 acres it covers and 58 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Mount Hood's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Mount Hood's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 6 and Oct 26 and the ~203-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 58 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Mount Hood, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Mount Hood's boundary and the 1,228 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~203-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Mount Hood sits in the Eastern Cascades Slopes and Foothills — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Mount Hood checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Mount Hood's 1,228 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Hood River County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Hood River 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 Hood River County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Mount Hood's 1,228 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Mount Hood you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,228 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Mount Hood-wide figureread your own land →