The Dalles, Oregon, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Expect cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in The Dalles, 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 The Dalles 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 The Dalles — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
The Dalles — the short answer
The Dalles, Oregon: USDA zone 8a, about 234 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~234
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 4K 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 8a is The Dalles's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against The Dalles's 234-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in The Dalles
Each reading below is measured for The Dalles itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredThe Dalles runs about 234 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
MeasuredThe Dalles sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
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 The Dalles is in
The Dalles sits in the Columbia Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at The Dalles's own centroid rather than borrowed from Wasco County.
What Grows in The Dalles
Every plant below cleared The Dalles's own zone 8a and its 234-day season. Each card opens that plant's Oregon profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in The Dalles?
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 17; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 17 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 6 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around The Dalles
Survey cells within 31 miles of The Dalles checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 545 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near The Dalles
Closest first, within ~10 miles of The Dalles. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- AMERITIESToxics Release Inventory · 950 ft
- AMERITIESBrownfields · 950 ft
- AMERITIESSuperfund · 950 ft
- THE DALLES ROUNDHOUSE (FORMER)Superfund · 1000 ft
- RENTAL PROPERTY THE DALLESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- MCP EAST SIDE CFNUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- WASCO COUNTY PUBLIC WORKS ROAD DIVISIONBrownfields · 1300 ft
- WASCO COUNTY ROAD DEPTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD CO. TIE-TREATING PLANTSuperfund · 0.6 mi
- LONE PINE 76Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- THE DALLES YACHT CLUBUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- JACKS MINI MARKETBrownfields · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from The Dalles'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 The Dalles.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of The Dalles
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of The Dalles
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around The Dalles, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of The Dalles — Superfund (6 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (109 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
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 The Dalles
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 Dalles average
Your land is one point inside The Dalles
Everything above resolves to The Dalles as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 The Dalles Average
The Dalles Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across The Dalles
- ●One soil character for all of The Dalles
- ●Frost dates read at The Dalles's scale: Mar 17 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not The Dalles's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in The Dalles
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in The Dalles, Oregon — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Dalles averages can't show:
We read public map data around The Dalles — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Dalles average
How we know this about The Dalles
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 The Dalles’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 The Dalles
When does frost risk typically end in The Dalles?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in The Dalles typically lands around Mar 17, 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 7.
When is the first frost in The Dalles?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in The Dalles typically arrives around Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 23, so the watching starts about Oct 7 — about 234 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in The Dalles?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, The Dalles sees about 234 frost-free days — roughly Mar 17 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 7 to Oct 23, about 199 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in The Dalles?
The federal record around The Dalles is a meaningful one — 175 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (109), the nearest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.2 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 The Dalles?
From about Oct 7 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 6 (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 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at The Dalles's scale — its 8a band and its 234-day season. Your yard writes its own version of The Dalles'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 The Dalles’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at The Dalles's own scale — its own ~234-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,278 acres it covers and 175 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- The Dalles's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- The Dalles's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 17 and Nov 6 and the ~234-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 175 documented contamination sites on the federal record near The Dalles, the closest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- The Dalles's boundary and the 4,278 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~234-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at The Dalles's own centroid, the Columbia PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around The Dalles 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 The Dalles's 4,278 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Wasco County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Wasco 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 Wasco County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among The Dalles's 4,278 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of The Dalles you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,278 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.2 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 The Dalles-wide figureread your own land →