Garfield County, in Washington, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, pawpaw, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Garfield County lies within the Columbia Basin — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Garfield County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Garfield County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Garfield County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Garfield County — the short answer
Garfield County, Washington: USDA zone 7a, about 194 days between hard freezes, across 455K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~194
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 455K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 7a is Garfield County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Garfield County's 194-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Garfield County
Across a year, Garfield County accumulates about 1,881 growing degree days above 50°F, about 168 more than the middle Washington county — ahead of 26 of Washington’s 39 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Garfield County
Across Garfield County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Athena, Lickskillet, and Limberjim are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.7–7.2, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
4%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Garfield County
The USDA soil survey maps 85% of Garfield County as well drained — but another 4% drains differently: 3% moderately well drained.
Athena is the most extensive named soil at 13% of mapped acres, then Lickskillet (5%) and Limberjim (5%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Garfield County
Each reading below is measured for Garfield County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Garfield County are well drained, in hydrologic group D — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Garfield County runs about pH 6.7–7.2, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredGarfield County runs about 194 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredGarfield County sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Garfield County is in
Garfield County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Columbia Plateau (76%) and Blue Mountains (24%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Garfield County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Garfield County's own USDA zone 7a and its own 194-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Washington profile.
Is it too late to plant in Garfield County?
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 18; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 15 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 26 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. As the window narrows, the plantings just get faster — fall brassicas, then greens, then garlic to finish.
Documented around Garfield County
- monarch butterfly2 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Garfield County
USGS estimates 182,760 lb of Glyphosate on Garfield County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Bromoxynil (19,182 lb) and 2,4-d (18,690 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Garfield County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Garfield County — 47 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Toxics Release Inventory facility. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Garfield County is light. Growing food here starts from a strong position — a quick pass over the map tells you whether any recorded site sits near your land, and if one does, that's information to plant with, not a reason to stop.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Garfield County
Closest first, across Garfield County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- WA DOT POMEROY MAINTENANCE SITEUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- BARTELS LONE STAR GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- WESTERN FARM SERVICE INC POMEROYUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
- 11N/42E-05C01 PAS13Nitrate · 3.7 mi
- GENERAL TRACTOR & IMPLMENT COUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- FOUR STAR SUPPLY, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- DOUGS TEXACO & TOWINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- COLEMAN OIL COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.9 mi
- CENTRAL FERRY STATE PARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- POMEROY SCHOOL DISTRICTUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.2 mi
- POMEROY CITY OFUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- FARM & HOME SUPPLYBrownfields · 4.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Garfield County'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 Garfield County.
Sources Checked
across Garfield County
Severity Distribution
across Garfield County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Garfield County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 35 sites across Garfield County. 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 Garfield County
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 Garfield County average
Your land is one point inside Garfield County
Everything above resolves to Garfield County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 455K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Garfield County Average
Garfield County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Garfield County
- ●One soil character for all of Garfield County
- ●Frost dates read at Garfield County's scale: Apr 15 to Oct 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Garfield County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Garfield County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Garfield County, Washington — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Garfield County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Garfield County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Garfield County average
How we know this about Garfield County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Garfield County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Garfield County
When does frost risk typically end in Garfield County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Garfield County typically lands around Apr 15, 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 May 6.
How long is the growing season in Garfield County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Garfield County sees about 194 frost-free days — roughly Apr 15 through Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 6 to Oct 12, about 159 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Garfield County?
The federal record around Garfield County is light — 47 documented sites across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (35), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 3.4 miles out — and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. Growing food here starts from a strong position; a soil test before new food beds settles any site-specific question.
Everything above is measured at Garfield County's scale — its 7a band and its 194-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Garfield County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Washington's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Garfield County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Garfield County's own scale — its own ~194-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 47 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Garfield County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Garfield County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~194-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Garfield CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 47 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 3.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Garfield County's boundary and the 454,934 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~194-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Garfield County spans, Columbia Plateau the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Garfield County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Garfield County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Washington grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Washington
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Garfield County — the ~194 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Garfield County's 454,934 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 47 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Garfield Countyread your own land →