Yacolt, Washington, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Yacolt, 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 Yacolt 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 Yacolt — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Yacolt — the short answer
Yacolt, Washington: USDA zone 8b, about 217 days between hard freezes, across 368 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
- 368 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 Yacolt's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Yacolt's 217-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Yacolt
Each reading below is measured for Yacolt itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsYacolt runs about 217 days between hard freezes (read from Clark County, the closest normal to Yacolt) — 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
MeasuredYacolt 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 Yacolt is in
Yacolt sits in the Cascades — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at Yacolt's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Clark County is mostly Willamette Valley. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Yacolt
Every plant below cleared Yacolt'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 Yacolt?
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 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. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Yacolt
Survey cells within 31 miles of Yacolt checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 561 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Yacolt
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Yacolt. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MCIUnderground Storage Tanks · 100 ft
- GERI MEULERUnderground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- M & M SUPPLY COUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- BEN C HERRUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- YACOLT TRADING POST GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- YACOLT PRIMARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- WILSON PARTS & SERVICE INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- WA DNR BATTLE GROUNDUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- AROUND THE CLOCK FUELUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- NORM LANGE ROAD BUILDERUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- 05N/03E-12P01Nitrate · 4.3 mi
- MT ST HELENS NAT VOLCANIC MONUMENT HQBrownfields · 4.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Yacolt'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 Yacolt.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Yacolt
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Yacolt
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Yacolt, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 61 sites within ~10 miles of Yacolt. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Yacolt
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 Yacolt average
Your land is one point inside Yacolt
Everything above resolves to Yacolt as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 368 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 Yacolt Average
Yacolt Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Yacolt
- ●One soil character for all of Yacolt
- ●Frost dates read at Yacolt's scale: Mar 28 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Yacolt's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Yacolt
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Yacolt, Washington — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Yacolt averages can't show:
We read public map data around Yacolt — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Yacolt average
How we know this about Yacolt
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 Yacolt
When does frost risk typically end in Yacolt?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Yacolt 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 Yacolt?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Yacolt 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 Yacolt?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Yacolt 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 Yacolt?
The federal record around Yacolt is a meaningful one — 92 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (61), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Yacolt?
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 Yacolt's scale — its 8b band and its 217-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Yacolt'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 Yacolt’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Yacolt's own scale — the 368 acres it covers and 92 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Yacolt's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- 92 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Yacolt, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Yacolt's boundary and the 368 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~217-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Yacolt sits in the Cascades — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Yacolt checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Yacolt 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 Yacolt's 368 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 Yacolt's 368 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Yacolt you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 368 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Yacolt-wide figureread your own land →