Taholah, Washington, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Growers here do well with artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Taholah, 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 Taholah 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 Taholah — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Taholah — the short answer
Taholah, Washington: USDA zone 9a, about 256 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 9
- Grays Harbor County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 20
- Grays Harbor County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~256
- Grays Harbor County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 Grays Harbor County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 9a is Taholah's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Taholah's 256-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Taholah
Each reading below is measured for Taholah itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsTaholah runs about 256 days between hard freezes (read from Grays Harbor County, the closest normal to Taholah) — 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
MeasuredTaholah sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a.
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 Taholah is in
Taholah sits in the Coast Range — EPA Level III, inside the wider Marine West Coast Forest. That is read at Taholah's own centroid rather than borrowed from Grays Harbor County.
What Grows in Taholah
Every plant below cleared Taholah's own zone 9a and its 256-day season. Each card opens that plant's Washington profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Taholah?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. 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 20 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Taholah
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Taholah. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Moclips PlacerMining · 6.4 mi
- NORTH BEACH HIGH SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.0 mi
- COLE PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.0 mi
- WILMA JILESUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.7 mi
- US NAVY STATION PACIFICUnderground Storage Tanks · 8.2 mi
- 20N/12W-20B01Nitrate · 8.2 mi
- JP HOWARD-SONS CHEVRON STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 8.5 mi
- YOU & I MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 8.7 mi
- ALOHA SHAKE COMPANY STEWART FERGUSONUnderground Storage Tanks · 9.8 mi
Measured from Taholah'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 Taholah.
Total Sites
10
within ~10 miles of Taholah
Risk Level
Low
Highest-severity
1 mining site (prospects, none worked)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Taholah
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Taholah
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
- •Mine waste leaches heavy metals. Test for lead, arsenic and cadmium before growing food here.
Check your specific parcel in Taholah
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 Taholah average
Your land is one point inside Taholah
Everything above resolves to Taholah as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 2K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Grays Harbor 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 Taholah Average
Taholah Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Taholah
- ●One soil character for all of Taholah
- ●Frost dates read at Taholah's scale: Mar 9 to Nov 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Taholah's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Taholah
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Taholah, Washington — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Taholah averages can't show:
We read public map data around Taholah — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Taholah average
How we know this about Taholah
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 Grays Harbor 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 Taholah
When does frost risk typically end in Taholah?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Taholah 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 Taholah?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Taholah typically arrives around Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 6, so the watching starts about Oct 21 — about 256 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Taholah?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Taholah sees about 256 frost-free days — roughly Mar 9 through Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 30 to Nov 6, about 221 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Taholah?
The federal record around Taholah is light — 10 documented sites across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (7), the nearest Mining record about 6.4 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Taholah?
From about Oct 21 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 20 (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 20. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Taholah's scale — its 9a band and its 256-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Taholah'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 Taholah’s own scale
5 of the readings below were taken at Taholah's own scale — the 2,213 acres it covers and 10 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Taholah's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- 10 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Taholah, the closest Mining record about 6.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Taholah's boundary and the 2,213 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~256-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Taholah's own centroid, the Coast RangeUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Taholah has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Grays Harbor County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Taholah's 2,213 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Grays Harbor County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Grays Harbor 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 Grays Harbor County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Taholah's 2,213 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Taholah you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,213 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Mining record about 6.4 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 Taholah-wide figureread your own land →