Channahon, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, blueberry, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Channahon, 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 Channahon 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 Channahon — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Channahon — the short answer
Channahon, Illinois: USDA zone 5b, about 209 days between hard freezes, across 11K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~209
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 11K 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 Channahon's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Channahon's 209-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Channahon
Each reading below is measured for Channahon itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredChannahon runs about 209 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
MeasuredChannahon 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 Channahon is in
Channahon sits in the Central Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Channahon's own centroid rather than borrowed from Grundy County.
What Grows in Channahon
Every plant below cleared Channahon's own zone 5b and its 209-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Channahon?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 7 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 2 — 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 Channahon
Spotted lanternfly documented 24 miles from Channahon, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Channahon
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Channahon. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Circle K 6875Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- JEWEL OSCO 3730Brownfields · 2000 ft
- CIRCLE K 6833Brownfields · 2300 ft
- Circle K #6883Underground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- CHICAGO GLIDER CLUB INCBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- MIDWEST VALVE SVCBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- Pritt SerUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- PENSKE TRUCK LEASINGBrownfields · 1.8 mi
- R&S DISTRIBUTORSBrownfields · 1.8 mi
- MOTIVE POWER RESOURCESBrownfields · 1.9 mi
- First Baptist ChurchUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- Channahon School Dist 17Underground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Channahon'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 Channahon.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Channahon
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Channahon
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Channahon, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Channahon — Toxics Release Inventory (62 sites) and Superfund (10 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Channahon
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 Channahon average
Your land is one point inside Channahon
Everything above resolves to Channahon as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 11K 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 Channahon Average
Channahon Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Channahon
- ●One soil character for all of Channahon
- ●Frost dates read at Channahon's scale: Apr 7 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Channahon's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Channahon
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Channahon, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Channahon averages can't show:
We read public map data around Channahon — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Channahon average
How we know this about Channahon
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 Channahon’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 Channahon
When does frost risk typically end in Channahon?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Channahon typically lands around Apr 7, 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 28.
When is the first frost in Channahon?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Channahon typically arrives around Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 19, so the watching starts about Oct 3 — about 209 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Channahon?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Channahon sees about 209 frost-free days — roughly Apr 7 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 28 to Oct 19, about 174 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Channahon?
The federal record around Channahon is a meaningful one — 644 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (279), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles 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 Channahon?
From about Oct 3 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 2 (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 2. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Channahon's scale — its 5b band and its 209-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Channahon'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 Channahon’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Channahon's own scale — its own ~209-day season between 28°F freezes, the 10,596 acres it covers and 644 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Channahon's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Channahon's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 7 and Nov 2 and the ~209-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 644 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Channahon, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Channahon's boundary and the 10,596 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~209-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Channahon's own centroid, the Central Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Channahonlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Channahon's 10,596 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Grundy County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Grundy 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 Grundy County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Channahon's 10,596 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Channahon you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 10,596 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Channahon-wide figureread your own land →
More in Illinois
Wider growing context
What grows across IllinoisChannahon sits outside our named growing regions, so Illinois as a whole is its closest context here.