May Creek, 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.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in May Creek, 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 May Creek 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 May Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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May Creek — the short answer
May Creek, Washington: USDA zone 8b, about 259 days between hard freezes, across 407 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~259
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 407 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 May Creek's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against May Creek's 259-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Your town runs its own season
May Creek's own 30-year record measures about 259 days between 28°F killing freezes — 51 days longer than Snohomish County's ~208. Both are measured records, not estimates.
That gap is the whole reason a county average can mislead here. Plant against May Creek's ~259-day season rather than the county figure — and the sun, slope and cold-air drainage on your specific lot move it again.
NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS (1991–2020), 30-year daily minimum record. Both figures are measured records — this town’s own and its county’s. A town with no record of its own is absent here rather than estimated.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in May Creek
Each reading below is measured for May Creek itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMay Creek runs about 259 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
MeasuredMay Creek 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 May Creek is in
May Creek sits in the Puget Lowland — EPA Level III, inside the wider Marine West Coast Forest. That is read at May Creek's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Snohomish County is mostly North Cascades. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in May Creek
Every plant below cleared May Creek's own zone 8b and its 259-day season. Each card opens that plant's Washington profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in May Creek?
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 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 8 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 22 — 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 May Creek
Closest first, within ~10 miles of May Creek. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 27N/09E-05Q02Nitrate · 1700 ft
- 27N/09E-04L01Nitrate · 2500 ft
- SNOHOMISH COUNTY FIRE DIST 26Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- 27N/09E-05C01Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- WALLACE FALLS STATE PARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- LOTH LUMBER COMPANY INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- MILLER LIME AND QUARRY INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- GOLD BAR MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- JACKPOT STATION 165Underground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- MANN PETROLEUMUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- HARRY MINOGUE/GOLD BAR GAS & GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- GOLD BAR CITY OFUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from May Creek'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 May Creek.
Total Sites
143
within ~10 miles of May Creek
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of May Creek
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of May Creek
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around May Creek, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of May Creek — Mining (62 sites) and Superfund (3 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in May Creek
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 May Creek average
Your land is one point inside May Creek
Everything above resolves to May Creek as a whole — and this is a town whose own 30-year record already runs a season its county’s does not. Your parcel sits at one point inside even that. 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 May Creek Average
May Creek Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across May Creek
- ●One soil character for all of May Creek
- ●Frost dates read at May Creek's scale: Mar 8 to Nov 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not May Creek's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in May Creek
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in May Creek, Washington — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that May Creek averages can't show:
We read public map data around May Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the May Creek average
How we know this about May Creek
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 May Creek’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 May Creek
When does frost risk typically end in May Creek?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in May Creek typically lands around Mar 8, 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 29.
When is the first frost in May Creek?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in May Creek typically arrives around Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 8, so the watching starts about Oct 23 — about 259 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in May Creek?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, May Creek sees about 259 frost-free days — roughly Mar 8 through Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 29 to Nov 8, about 224 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in May Creek?
The federal record around May Creek is a meaningful one — 143 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (62), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.3 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 May Creek?
From about Oct 23 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 22 (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 22. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at May Creek's scale — its 8b band and its 259-day season. Your yard writes its own version of May Creek'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 May Creek’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at May Creek's own scale — its own ~259-day season between 28°F freezes, the 407 acres it covers and 143 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- May Creek's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- May Creek's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 8 and Nov 22 and the ~259-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 143 documented contamination sites on the federal record near May Creek, the closest Nitrate record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- May Creek's boundary and the 407 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~259-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- May Creek 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 May Creek's 407 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Snohomish County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Snohomish 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 Snohomish County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among May Creek's 407 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of May Creek you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 407 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.3 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 May Creek-wide figureread your own land →
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