Airway Heights, Washington, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Airway Heights, 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 Airway Heights 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 Airway Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Airway Heights — the short answer
Airway Heights, Washington: USDA zone 6b, about 201 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~201
- 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 6b is Airway Heights's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Airway Heights's 201-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Airway Heights
Each reading below is measured for Airway Heights itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredAirway Heights runs about 201 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
MeasuredAirway Heights sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Airway Heights is in
Airway Heights sits in the Columbia Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Airway Heights's own centroid rather than borrowed from Spokane County.
What Grows in Airway Heights
Every plant below cleared Airway Heights's own zone 6b and its 201-day season. Each card opens that plant's Washington profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Airway Heights?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 27 — 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 Airway Heights
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Airway Heights. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- STERICYCLE AIRWAY HEIGHTSBrownfields · 550 ft
- WEST PLAINS CONOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- CENEX ZIP TRIP #34Underground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- SUNSET ELEMENTARYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- AIRWAY HEIGHTS CITY OFPFAS · 0.6 mi
- VIETZKE EXCAVATING COUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- MIDCO MANUFATURING INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- SQUARE D COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- AIRWAY HEIGHTS CORRECTIONS CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- SPEEDI SHOPPEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- AIRWAY HEIGHTS CORRECTIONS CENTERBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- OMEGA PACIFICToxics Release Inventory · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Airway Heights'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 Airway Heights.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Airway Heights
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Airway Heights
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Airway Heights, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 511 sites within ~10 miles of Airway Heights. 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 Airway Heights
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 Airway Heights average
Your land is one point inside Airway Heights
Everything above resolves to Airway Heights 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 Airway Heights Average
Airway Heights Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Airway Heights
- ●One soil character for all of Airway Heights
- ●Frost dates read at Airway Heights's scale: Apr 9 to Oct 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Airway Heights's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Airway Heights
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Airway Heights, Washington — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Airway Heights averages can't show:
We read public map data around Airway Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Airway Heights average
How we know this about Airway Heights
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 Airway Heights’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 Airway Heights
When does frost risk typically end in Airway Heights?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Airway Heights typically lands around Apr 9, 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 30.
When is the first frost in Airway Heights?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Airway Heights typically arrives around Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 13, so the watching starts about Sep 27 — about 201 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Airway Heights?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Airway Heights sees about 201 frost-free days — roughly Apr 9 through Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 30 to Oct 13, about 166 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Airway Heights?
The federal record around Airway Heights is a meaningful one — 774 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (511), the nearest Brownfields 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 Airway Heights?
From about Sep 27 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 27 (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 27. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Airway Heights's scale — its 6b band and its 201-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Airway Heights'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 Airway Heights’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Airway Heights's own scale — its own ~201-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,846 acres it covers and 774 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Airway Heights's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Airway Heights's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 9 and Oct 27 and the ~201-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 774 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Airway Heights, the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Airway Heights's boundary and the 3,846 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~201-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Airway Heights's own centroid, the Columbia PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Airway Heights's 3,846 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Spokane County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Spokane County
- The growing challenges every Washington grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Washington
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Spokane County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Airway Heights's 3,846 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Airway Heights you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,846 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Airway Heights-wide figureread your own land →