Salt Lake City, Utah, 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.
Expect cabbage, prickly pear, 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 Salt Lake City, 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 Salt Lake City 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 Salt Lake City — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Salt Lake City — the short answer
Salt Lake City, Utah: USDA zone 7b, about 231 days between hard freezes, across 71K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~231
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 71K 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 Salt Lake City's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Salt Lake City's 231-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Salt Lake City
Each reading below is measured for Salt Lake City itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSalt Lake City runs about 231 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
MeasuredSalt Lake City 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 Salt Lake City is in
Salt Lake City sits in the Central Basin and Range — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Salt Lake City's own centroid rather than borrowed from Salt Lake County.
What Grows in Salt Lake City
Every plant below cleared Salt Lake City's own zone 7b and its 231-day season. Each card opens that plant's Utah profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Salt Lake City?
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 22; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 22 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 8 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Salt Lake City
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Salt Lake City. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- UTAH STATE CORRECTIONAL FACILITYBrownfields · 800 ft
- ROSE PARK #2 DOUBLE-KWIK MINI-MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL RENT-A-CAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- CROWN ASPHALT PRODUCTS COMPANY - GADSBY TERMINALToxics Release Inventory · 1900 ft
- FORT DOUGLAS TOXIC EXERCISE AREASuperfund · 1900 ft
- WHEEL INN MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- NATURAL RESOURCES ISF MOTOR POOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- BOB MURRAYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- S.L.C. MOSQUITO ABATEMENTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- U.S.WEST 673027 ROSE PARK CENTRAL OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- UP&L TRANSPORTATION #2Underground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- PACIFICORP EPUC 3Underground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Salt Lake City'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 Salt Lake City.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Salt Lake City
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Salt Lake City
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Salt Lake City, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 55 sites within ~10 miles of Salt Lake City. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Salt Lake City
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 Salt Lake City average
Your land is one point inside Salt Lake City
Everything above resolves to Salt Lake City as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 71K 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 Salt Lake City Average
Salt Lake City Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Salt Lake City
- ●One soil character for all of Salt Lake City
- ●Frost dates read at Salt Lake City's scale: Mar 22 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Salt Lake City's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Salt Lake City
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Salt Lake City, Utah — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Salt Lake City averages can't show:
We read public map data around Salt Lake City — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Salt Lake City average
How we know this about Salt Lake City
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 Salt Lake City’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 Salt Lake City
When does frost risk typically end in Salt Lake City?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Salt Lake City typically lands around Mar 22, 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 12.
When is the first frost in Salt Lake City?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Salt Lake City typically arrives around Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 25, so the watching starts about Oct 9 — about 231 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Salt Lake City?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Salt Lake City sees about 231 frost-free days — roughly Mar 22 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 12 to Oct 25, about 196 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Salt Lake City?
The federal record around Salt Lake City runs heavier than most — 3,567 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,735), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.2 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 Salt Lake City?
From about Oct 9 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 8 (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 8. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Salt Lake City's scale — its 7b band and its 231-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Salt Lake City'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 Salt Lake City’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Salt Lake City's own scale — its own ~231-day season between 28°F freezes, the 70,970 acres it covers and 3,567 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Salt Lake City's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Salt Lake City's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 22 and Nov 8 and the ~231-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 3,567 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Salt Lake City, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Salt Lake City's boundary and the 70,970 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~231-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Salt Lake City's own centroid, the Central Basin and RangeUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Salt Lake City's 70,970 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Salt Lake County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Salt Lake County
- The growing challenges every Utah grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Utah
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Salt Lake County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Salt Lake City's 70,970 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Salt Lake City you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 70,970 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Salt Lake City-wide figureread your own land →