Bone Gap, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Bone Gap, 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 Bone Gap 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 Bone Gap — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Bone Gap — the short answer
Bone Gap, Illinois: USDA zone 6b, about 224 days between hard freezes, across 373 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~224
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 373 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 6b is Bone Gap's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bone Gap's 224-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Bone Gap
Each reading below is measured for Bone Gap itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBone Gap runs about 224 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
MeasuredBone Gap sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Bone Gap is in
Bone Gap sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Bone Gap's own centroid rather than borrowed from Edwards County.
What Grows in Bone Gap
Every plant below cleared Bone Gap's own zone 6b and its 224-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Bone Gap?
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 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 Nov 7 — 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.
Documented around Bone Gap
Survey cells within 31 miles of Bone Gap checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 166 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Bone Gap
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Bone Gap. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Bone GapUnderground Storage Tanks · 75 ft
- Bares GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- Midwest WasteUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- United Agri - Chemical Products (UAP) RichterUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- McLean ImplementUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
- Albion Equipment CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
- McLean Implement IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
- Clayton & Richard Mcdowell Oil CUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
- Browns PlantUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.8 mi
- Nelson DwightUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.8 mi
- Chemical Fertilizer SerUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.8 mi
- TENNIS DAIRY FARMS LPCAFO · 4.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bone Gap'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 Bone Gap.
Total Sites
70
within ~10 miles of Bone Gap
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Bone Gap
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Bone Gap
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bone Gap, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 52 sites within ~10 miles of Bone Gap. 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 Bone Gap
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 Bone Gap average
Your land is one point inside Bone Gap
Everything above resolves to Bone Gap as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 373 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 Bone Gap Average
Bone Gap Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Bone Gap
- ●One soil character for all of Bone Gap
- ●Frost dates read at Bone Gap's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bone Gap's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Bone Gap
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bone Gap, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bone Gap averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bone Gap — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bone Gap average
How we know this about Bone Gap
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 Bone Gap’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 Bone Gap
When does frost risk typically end in Bone Gap?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bone Gap 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 Bone Gap?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Bone Gap typically arrives around Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 24, so the watching starts about Oct 8 — about 224 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Bone Gap?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bone Gap sees about 224 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Oct 24, about 189 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bone Gap?
The federal record around Bone Gap shows 70 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (52), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Bone Gap?
From about Oct 8 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 7 (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 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Bone Gap's scale — its 6b band and its 224-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bone Gap'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 Bone Gap’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Bone Gap's own scale — its own ~224-day season between 28°F freezes, the 373 acres it covers and 70 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bone Gap's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bone Gap's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 7 and the ~224-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 70 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Bone Gap, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Bone Gap's boundary and the 373 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~224-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Bone Gap's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Bone Gap checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Bone Gap's 373 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Edwards County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Edwards 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 Edwards County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bone Gap's 373 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Bone Gap you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 373 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 Bone Gap-wide figureread your own land →
More in Illinois
Wider growing context
What grows across IllinoisBone Gap sits outside our named growing regions, so Illinois as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides