Carbonado, Washington, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
These conditions suit cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Carbonado, 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 Carbonado 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 Carbonado — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Carbonado — the short answer
Carbonado, Washington: USDA zone 8b, about 255 days between hard freezes, across 266 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~255
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 266 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 8b is Carbonado's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Carbonado's 255-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Carbonado
Each reading below is measured for Carbonado itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCarbonado runs about 255 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
MeasuredCarbonado 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 Carbonado is in
Carbonado sits in the Puget Lowland — EPA Level III, inside the wider Marine West Coast Forest. That is read at Carbonado's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Pierce County is mostly Cascades. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Carbonado
Every plant below cleared Carbonado's own zone 8b and its 255-day season. Each card opens that plant's Washington profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Carbonado?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 19 — 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 Carbonado
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Carbonado. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SUNSET LAKE CAMPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- WILKESON CITY HALLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- CHUCK'S SERVICE, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- 18N/04E-10Q01Nitrate · 2.2 mi
- TURNA, LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
- BURNETT STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- 25N/06E-19H02Nitrate · 4.3 mi
- ARNOLD'S GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
- BUCKLEY WATERPFAS · 4.9 mi
- SQUARE D COMPANY NELCO PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.2 mi
- ORTING CITY OFPFAS · 5.2 mi
- 1ST CHOICE CHEVRONUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Carbonado'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 Carbonado.
Total Sites
192
within ~10 miles of Carbonado
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Carbonado
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Carbonado
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Carbonado, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Carbonado — CAFO (7 sites) and PFAS (3 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Carbonado
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 Carbonado average
Your land is one point inside Carbonado
Everything above resolves to Carbonado as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 266 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 Carbonado Average
Carbonado Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Carbonado
- ●One soil character for all of Carbonado
- ●Frost dates read at Carbonado's scale: Mar 9 to Nov 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Carbonado's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Carbonado
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Carbonado, Washington — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Carbonado averages can't show:
We read public map data around Carbonado — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Carbonado average
How we know this about Carbonado
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 Carbonado’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 Carbonado
When does frost risk typically end in Carbonado?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Carbonado typically lands around Mar 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 Mar 30.
When is the first frost in Carbonado?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Carbonado typically arrives around Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 5, so the watching starts about Oct 20 — about 255 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Carbonado?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Carbonado sees about 255 frost-free days — roughly Mar 9 through Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 30 to Nov 5, about 220 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Carbonado?
The federal record around Carbonado shows 192 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (127), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.4 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Carbonado?
From about Oct 20 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 19 (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 19. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Carbonado's scale — its 8b band and its 255-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Carbonado'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 Carbonado’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Carbonado's own scale — its own ~255-day season between 28°F freezes, the 266 acres it covers and 192 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Carbonado's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Carbonado's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 9 and Nov 19 and the ~255-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 192 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Carbonado, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Carbonado's boundary and the 266 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~255-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Carbonado sits in the Puget Lowland — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Carbonado's 266 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Pierce County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Pierce 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 Pierce County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Carbonado's 266 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Carbonado you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 266 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.4 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 Carbonado-wide figureread your own land →
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