Alsip, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Growers here do well with cabbage, blueberry, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Alsip, 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 Alsip 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 Alsip — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Alsip — the short answer
Alsip, Illinois: USDA zone 6a, about 223 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~223
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 4K 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 6a is Alsip's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Alsip's 223-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Alsip
Each reading below is measured for Alsip itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredAlsip runs about 223 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
MeasuredAlsip sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Alsip is in
Alsip sits in the Central Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Alsip's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cook County.
What Grows in Alsip
Every plant below cleared Alsip's own zone 6a and its 223-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Alsip?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 10 — 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.
Documented around Alsip
Spotted lanternfly documented 5 miles from Alsip, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Alsip
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Alsip. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BP - IL0009Underground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- Alsip Gas Mart CitgoUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- SHERWIN WILLIAMS 3948Brownfields · 700 ft
- SOUTHWEST COLLISIONBrownfields · 850 ft
- Enterprise Rent A CarUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- Public Works GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- Alsip Village OfUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- ALSIPPFAS · 1400 ft
- #019413Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- Ewitt HardwareUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- Southgate Dist Co IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- MARKS PAINT & COLLISION CENTER INCBrownfields · 1500 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Alsip'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 Alsip.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Alsip
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Alsip
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Alsip, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Alsip — Toxics Release Inventory (336 sites) and Superfund (63 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Alsip
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 Alsip average
Your land is one point inside Alsip
Everything above resolves to Alsip as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 Alsip Average
Alsip Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Alsip
- ●One soil character for all of Alsip
- ●Frost dates read at Alsip's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Alsip's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Alsip
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Alsip, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Alsip averages can't show:
We read public map data around Alsip — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Alsip average
How we know this about Alsip
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 Alsip’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 Alsip
When does frost risk typically end in Alsip?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Alsip typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
When is the first frost in Alsip?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Alsip typically arrives around Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 27, so the watching starts about Oct 11 — about 223 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Alsip?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Alsip sees about 223 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 27, about 188 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Alsip?
The federal record around Alsip is a meaningful one — 4,008 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (2,074), 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 Alsip?
From about Oct 11 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 10 (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 10. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Alsip's scale — its 6a band and its 223-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Alsip'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 Alsip’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Alsip's own scale — its own ~223-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,178 acres it covers and 4,008 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Alsip's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Alsip's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 10 and the ~223-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 4,008 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Alsip, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Alsip's boundary and the 4,178 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~223-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Alsip's own centroid, the Central Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Alsiplydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Alsip's 4,178 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cook County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cook County
- The growing challenges every Illinois grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Illinois
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Cook County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Alsip's 4,178 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Alsip you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,178 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 Alsip-wide figureread your own land →