Hidden Springs, Idaho, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, pawpaw, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Hidden Springs, 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 Hidden Springs 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 Hidden Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Hidden Springs — the short answer
Hidden Springs, Idaho: USDA zone 7a, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~200
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 Hidden Springs's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Hidden Springs's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Hidden Springs
Each reading below is measured for Hidden Springs itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHidden Springs runs about 200 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
MeasuredHidden Springs 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 Hidden Springs is in
Hidden Springs sits in the Snake River Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Hidden Springs's own centroid rather than borrowed from Ada County.
What Grows in Hidden Springs
Every plant below cleared Hidden Springs's own zone 7a and its 200-day season. Each card opens that plant's Idaho profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Hidden Springs?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 11 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 28 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
What's on the federal record near Hidden Springs
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Hidden Springs. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 05N 02E 31CAB2Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- 05N 02E 31ADC1Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- 05N 02E 31ADDD1Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- Veolia EaglePFAS · 1.1 mi
- GARDEN CITY WATER AND SEWER SYSTEMPFAS · 1.1 mi
- 05N 02E 31BCC1Nitrate · 1.1 mi
- 05N 02E 30CDC2Nitrate · 1.4 mi
- 05N 01E 36AAB1Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- 05N 02E 30DAD1Nitrate · 1.7 mi
- 05N 02E 29BCC1-DESTROYEDNitrate · 1.8 mi
- 04N 01E 13BAAA1-DESTROYEDNitrate · 2.2 mi
- 04N 02E 09CCD2Nitrate · 2.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Hidden Springs'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 Hidden Springs.
Total Sites
1,845
within ~10 miles of Hidden Springs
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
7 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Hidden Springs
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Hidden Springs
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Hidden Springs, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 1,016 sites within ~10 miles of Hidden Springs. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Hidden Springs
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 Hidden Springs average
Your land is one point inside Hidden Springs
Everything above resolves to Hidden Springs as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 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 Hidden Springs Average
Hidden Springs Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Hidden Springs
- ●One soil character for all of Hidden Springs
- ●Frost dates read at Hidden Springs's scale: Apr 11 to Oct 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Hidden Springs's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Hidden Springs
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Hidden Springs, Idaho — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Hidden Springs averages can't show:
We read public map data around Hidden Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hidden Springs average
How we know this about Hidden Springs
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 Hidden Springs’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 Hidden Springs
When does frost risk typically end in Hidden Springs?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Hidden Springs typically lands around Apr 11, 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 May 2.
When is the first frost in Hidden Springs?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Hidden Springs typically arrives around Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 14, so the watching starts about Sep 28 — about 200 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Hidden Springs?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Hidden Springs sees about 200 frost-free days — roughly Apr 11 through Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 2 to Oct 14, about 165 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Hidden Springs?
The federal record around Hidden Springs runs heavier than most — 1,845 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (1,016), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.8 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 Hidden Springs?
From about Sep 28 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 28 (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 28. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Hidden Springs's scale — its 7a band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Hidden Springs'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 Hidden Springs’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Hidden Springs's own scale — its own ~200-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,686 acres it covers and 1,845 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Hidden Springs's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Hidden Springs's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 11 and Oct 28 and the ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,845 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Hidden Springs, the closest Nitrate record about 0.8 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Hidden Springs's boundary and the 1,686 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~200-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Hidden Springs's own centroid, the Snake River PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Hidden Springs's 1,686 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Ada County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Ada County
- The growing challenges every Idaho grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Idaho
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Ada County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Hidden Springs's 1,686 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Hidden Springs you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,686 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.8 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 Hidden Springs-wide figureread your own land →