Sweet Home, 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 Sweet Home, 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 Sweet Home 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 Sweet Home — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Sweet Home — the short answer
Sweet Home, Oregon: USDA zone 8b, about 258 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 10
- Linn County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 23
- Linn County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~258
- Linn County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- City area
- 3K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. No 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid, so the hard-freeze dates are Linn County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 8b is Sweet Home's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Sweet Home's 258-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Sweet Home
Each reading below is measured for Sweet Home itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsSweet Home runs about 258 days between hard freezes (read from Linn County, the closest normal to Sweet Home) — 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
MeasuredSweet Home 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 Sweet Home is in
Sweet Home sits in the Willamette Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Marine West Coast Forest. That is read at Sweet Home's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Linn County is mostly Cascades. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Sweet Home
Every plant below cleared Sweet Home's own zone 8b and its 258-day season. Each card opens that plant's Oregon profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Sweet Home?
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 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 23 — 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 Sweet Home
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Sweet Home. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CASCADE TIMBER CONSULTING INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- FEDERAL CARTRIDGE COMPANY DBA HEVI-SHOTToxics Release Inventory · 1700 ft
- FEDERAL CARTRIDGE COMPANY DBA HEVI-SHOTBrownfields · 1700 ft
- SWEET HOME SAND & GRAVELUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- O&M TIRE FACTORYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- QUARTZVILLE MAINTENANCE ROAD SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- USFSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- WIMER LOGGING CO.Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- RON'S OIL COMPANY #12Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- FAMILY PALLET LUMBERToxics Release Inventory · 0.9 mi
- FAMILY PALLET LUMBERSuperfund · 0.9 mi
- TRUAX CORPORATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Sweet Home'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 Sweet Home.
Total Sites
64
within ~10 miles of Sweet Home
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Sweet Home
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Sweet Home
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Sweet Home, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Sweet Home — Superfund (3 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (44 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Sweet Home
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 Sweet Home average
Your land is one point inside Sweet Home
Everything above resolves to Sweet Home as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 3K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Linn County’s record because no 30-year normal resolves at this city’s own centroid. 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 Sweet Home Average
Sweet Home Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Sweet Home
- ●One soil character for all of Sweet Home
- ●Frost dates read at Sweet Home's scale: Mar 10 to Nov 23
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Sweet Home's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Sweet Home
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Sweet Home, Oregon — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Sweet Home averages can't show:
We read public map data around Sweet Home — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Sweet Home average
How we know this about Sweet Home
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 Linn County’s record, because none resolves here; 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 Sweet Home
When does frost risk typically end in Sweet Home?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Sweet Home 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 Sweet Home?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Sweet Home typically arrives around Nov 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 9, so the watching starts about Oct 24 — about 258 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Sweet Home?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Sweet Home sees about 258 frost-free days — roughly Mar 10 through Nov 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 31 to Nov 9, about 223 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Sweet Home?
The federal record around Sweet Home is a meaningful one — 64 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (44), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Sweet Home?
From about Oct 24 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 23 (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 23. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Sweet Home's scale — its 8b band and its 258-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Sweet Home'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 Sweet Home’s own scale
5 of the readings below were taken at Sweet Home's own scale — the 3,396 acres it covers and 64 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Sweet Home's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- 64 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Sweet Home, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Sweet Home's boundary and the 3,396 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~258-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Sweet Home sits in the Willamette Valley — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Sweet Home has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Linn County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Sweet Home's 3,396 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Linn County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Linn 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 Linn County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Sweet Home's 3,396 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Sweet Home you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,396 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Sweet Home-wide figureread your own land →