Fern Prairie, Washington, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
The conditions favor cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Fern Prairie, 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 Fern Prairie 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 Fern Prairie — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Fern Prairie — the short answer
Fern Prairie, Washington: USDA zone 8b, about 217 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 28
- Clark County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- Clark County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~217
- Clark County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Town area
- 3K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. No 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid, so the hard-freeze dates are Clark County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 8b is Fern Prairie's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Fern Prairie's 217-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Fern Prairie
Each reading below is measured for Fern Prairie itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsFern Prairie runs about 217 days between hard freezes (read from Clark County, the closest normal to Fern Prairie) — 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
MeasuredFern Prairie 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 Fern Prairie is in
Fern Prairie sits in the Willamette Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Marine West Coast Forest. That is read at Fern Prairie's own centroid rather than borrowed from Clark County.
What Grows in Fern Prairie
Every plant below cleared Fern Prairie's own zone 8b and its 217-day season. Each card opens that plant's Washington profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Fern Prairie?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 31 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Fern Prairie
Survey cells within 31 miles of Fern Prairie 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 Fern Prairie
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Fern Prairie. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FERN PRAIRIE MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- CAMAS-WASHOUGAL PORT OF AIRPORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- CAMAS MUNICIPAL WATER SEWER SYSTEMPFAS · 0.9 mi
- HARRY D JUMPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- CAMAS PRINT 416 LINE SEGMENT 047Underground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- WASHOUGAL COMPRESSOR STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- NORTHWEST PIPELINE LLC - WASHOUGALBrownfields · 1.5 mi
- GREGG ROOFING INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- LAKE STORE JAMES E PIDGEONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- Lacamas Lake LodgeUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- CLARK COUNTY PUBLIC WORKS LIVINGSTONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- Dawson PropertyUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Fern Prairie'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 Fern Prairie.
Total Sites
1,053
within ~10 miles of Fern Prairie
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
22 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Fern Prairie
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Fern Prairie
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Fern Prairie, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Fern Prairie — Superfund (22 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (68 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.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Fern Prairie
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 Fern Prairie average
Your land is one point inside Fern Prairie
Everything above resolves to Fern Prairie as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 3K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Clark County’s record because no 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid. 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 Fern Prairie Average
Fern Prairie Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Fern Prairie
- ●One soil character for all of Fern Prairie
- ●Frost dates read at Fern Prairie's scale: Mar 28 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Fern Prairie's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Fern Prairie
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Fern Prairie, Washington — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Fern Prairie averages can't show:
We read public map data around Fern Prairie — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Fern Prairie average
How we know this about Fern Prairie
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 Clark County’s record, because none resolves here; 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 Fern Prairie
When does frost risk typically end in Fern Prairie?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Fern Prairie typically lands around Mar 28, 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 18.
When is the first frost in Fern Prairie?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Fern Prairie typically arrives around Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 17, so the watching starts about Oct 1 — about 217 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Fern Prairie?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Fern Prairie sees about 217 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Oct 17, about 182 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Fern Prairie?
The federal record around Fern Prairie is a meaningful one — 1,053 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (546), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Fern Prairie?
From about Oct 1 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 31 (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 31. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Fern Prairie's scale — its 8b band and its 217-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Fern Prairie'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 Fern Prairie’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Fern Prairie's own scale — the 3,211 acres it covers and 1,053 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Fern Prairie's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- 1,053 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Fern Prairie, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Fern Prairie's boundary and the 3,211 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~217-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Fern Prairie's own centroid, the Willamette ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Fern Prairie checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Fern Prairie has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Clark County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Fern Prairie's 3,211 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Clark County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Clark 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 Clark County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Fern Prairie's 3,211 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Fern Prairie you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,211 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Fern Prairie-wide figureread your own land →