Ashkum, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Ashkum, 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 Ashkum 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 Ashkum — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Ashkum — the short answer
Ashkum, Illinois: USDA zone 5b, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 534 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- 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
- 534 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 5b is Ashkum's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Ashkum's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Ashkum
Each reading below is measured for Ashkum itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredAshkum 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
MeasuredAshkum sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b.
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 Ashkum is in
Ashkum sits in the Central Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Ashkum's own centroid rather than borrowed from Iroquois County.
What Grows in Ashkum
Every plant below cleared Ashkum's own zone 5b and its 200-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Ashkum?
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. 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 Ashkum
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Ashkum. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ILDOT ASHKUM MAINTBrownfields · 700 ft
- Assumption Of Bvm Cathlic ChurchUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- Tri Central CoopUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- Ashkum Minit Mart #621Underground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- Occidental Chemical CorpUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- BS TRANSPORTATION OF IL LLCBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- Danforth FsUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- ASHKUMPFAS · 1.2 mi
- Heritage Fs IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- Circle K #1385Underground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
- TRIMKOTEBrownfields · 3.7 mi
- CUSD 4 BUS DEPOTBrownfields · 3.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Ashkum'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 Ashkum.
Total Sites
74
within ~10 miles of Ashkum
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Ashkum
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Ashkum
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Ashkum, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 50 sites within ~10 miles of Ashkum. 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 Ashkum
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 Ashkum average
Your land is one point inside Ashkum
Everything above resolves to Ashkum as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 534 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 Ashkum Average
Ashkum Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Ashkum
- ●One soil character for all of Ashkum
- ●Frost dates read at Ashkum's scale: Apr 11 to Oct 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Ashkum's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Ashkum
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Ashkum, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Ashkum averages can't show:
We read public map data around Ashkum — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Ashkum average
How we know this about Ashkum
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 Ashkum’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 Ashkum
When does frost risk typically end in Ashkum?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Ashkum 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 Ashkum?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Ashkum 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 Ashkum?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Ashkum 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 Ashkum?
The federal record around Ashkum shows 74 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (50), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Ashkum?
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 Ashkum's scale — its 5b band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Ashkum'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 Ashkum’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Ashkum's own scale — its own ~200-day season between 28°F freezes, the 534 acres it covers and 74 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Ashkum's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Ashkum's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 11 and Oct 28 and the ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 74 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Ashkum, the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Ashkum's boundary and the 534 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~200-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Ashkum's own centroid, the Central Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Ashkum's 534 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Iroquois County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Iroquois 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 Iroquois County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Ashkum's 534 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Ashkum you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 534 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 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 Ashkum-wide figureread your own land →
More in Illinois
Wider growing context
What grows across IllinoisAshkum sits outside our named growing regions, so Illinois as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides