Tonasket, Washington, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
These conditions suit cabbage, pawpaw, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Tonasket, 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 Tonasket 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 Tonasket — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Tonasket — the short answer
Tonasket, Washington: USDA zone 7a, about 204 days between hard freezes, across 604 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~204
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 604 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 7a is Tonasket's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Tonasket's 204-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Tonasket
Each reading below is measured for Tonasket itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredTonasket runs about 204 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
MeasuredTonasket 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 Tonasket is in
Tonasket sits in the Columbia Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Tonasket's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Okanogan County is mostly North Cascades. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Tonasket
Every plant below cleared Tonasket's own zone 7a and its 204-day season. Each card opens that plant's Washington profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Tonasket?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 4 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 25 — 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 Tonasket
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Tonasket. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- NORTH VALLEY HOSPITALUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- TONASKET CENTRAL OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- WILBUR ELLIS CO TONASKETBrownfields · 1000 ft
- MOONLIGHT OIL COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- 37N/27E-16C02Nitrate · 1100 ft
- OKANOGAN COUNTY PUDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- TONASKET FOOD MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- NORTH CENTRAL PETROLEUM TONASKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- USDA FS OKANOGAN NF:TONASKETSuperfund · 2200 ft
- WA DOT TONASKET MAINTENANCEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- TONASKET SCHOOL DISTRICT 404Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- 37N/27E-16H01Nitrate · 2600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Tonasket'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 Tonasket.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Tonasket
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Tonasket
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Tonasket, Mining runs higher than the national average — 25 sites within ~10 miles of Tonasket. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Tonasket
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 Tonasket average
Your land is one point inside Tonasket
Everything above resolves to Tonasket as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 604 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 city 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 Tonasket Average
Tonasket Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Tonasket
- ●One soil character for all of Tonasket
- ●Frost dates read at Tonasket's scale: Apr 4 to Oct 25
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Tonasket's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Tonasket
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Tonasket, Washington — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Tonasket averages can't show:
We read public map data around Tonasket — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Tonasket average
How we know this about Tonasket
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Tonasket’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Tonasket
When does frost risk typically end in Tonasket?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Tonasket typically lands around Apr 4, 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 25.
When is the first frost in Tonasket?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Tonasket typically arrives around Oct 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 11, so the watching starts about Sep 25 — about 204 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Tonasket?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Tonasket sees about 204 frost-free days — roughly Apr 4 through Oct 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 25 to Oct 11, about 169 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Tonasket?
The federal record around Tonasket runs heavier than most — 52 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (25), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Tonasket?
From about Sep 25 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 25 (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 25. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Tonasket's scale — its 7a band and its 204-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Tonasket'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 Tonasket’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Tonasket's own scale — its own ~204-day season between 28°F freezes, the 604 acres it covers and 52 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Tonasket's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Tonasket's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 4 and Oct 25 and the ~204-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 52 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Tonasket, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Tonasket's boundary and the 604 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~204-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Tonasket sits in the Columbia Plateau — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Tonasket's 604 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Okanogan County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Okanogan 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 Okanogan County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Tonasket's 604 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Tonasket you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 604 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Tonasket-wide figureread your own land →