Peoria County, in Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, blueberry, lavender, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Peoria County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Peoria County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Peoria County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Peoria County — the short answer
Peoria County, Illinois: USDA zone 5b, about 205 days between hard freezes, across 396K acres.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~205
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 396K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 Peoria County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Peoria County's 205-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Peoria County
Across a year, Peoria County accumulates about 3,104 growing degree days above 50°F, about 279 fewer than the middle Illinois county — ahead of 30 of Illinois’s 102 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Peoria County
Across Peoria County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Rozetta, Ipava, and Hickory are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.0–6.8, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
41%
Hydric soils
7%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Peoria County
The USDA soil survey maps 61% of Peoria County as well drained — but another 35% drains differently: 25% somewhat poorly drained, 6% poorly drained.
Rozetta is the most extensive named soil at 14% of mapped acres, then Ipava (11%) and Hickory (6%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Peoria County
Each reading below is measured for Peoria County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Peoria County are well drained, in hydrologic group B — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Peoria County runs about pH 6.0–6.8, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredPeoria County runs about 205 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
MeasuredPeoria County 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 Peoria County is in
Peoria County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Interior River Valleys and Hills (82%) and Central Corn Belt Plains (18%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Peoria County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Peoria County's own USDA zone 5b and its own 205-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile.
Is it too late to plant in Peoria County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 8 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 30 — 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 Peoria County
- Japanese beetle16 documented records
- monarch butterfly117 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Peoria County
USGS estimates 219,052 lb of Glyphosate on Peoria County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (101,127 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (93,167 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Peoria County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Peoria County — 912 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 6 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Peoria County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Peoria County
Closest first, across Peoria County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Fuel 24Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Peoria County ESDA/EMAUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- American Bottling CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- NORCO FUEL INC # 2Brownfields · 1.0 mi
- Freedom Oil Co.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- Reid's MobilUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- Peoria County Ser CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- Caterpillar Tractor Company/Edwards TrainingUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- Peoria City / County Landfill #2Underground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
- Walt's Gas StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- CMS Peoria State GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- IDOT PEORIA (EDWARDS) MATERIALS LAB (D4LE)Brownfields · 3.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Peoria County'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 Peoria County.
Total Sites
912
across Peoria County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
6 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Peoria County
Severity Distribution
across Peoria County
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •TRI facilities report what they release. Check the wind — downwind beds catch more of it.
Check your specific parcel in Peoria County
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 Peoria County average
Your land is one point inside Peoria County
Everything above resolves to Peoria County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 396K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Peoria County Average
Peoria County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Peoria County
- ●One soil character for all of Peoria County
- ●Frost dates read at Peoria County's scale: Apr 8 to Oct 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Peoria County's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Peoria County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Peoria County, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Peoria County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Peoria County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Peoria County average
How we know this about Peoria County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Peoria County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Peoria County
When does frost risk typically end in Peoria County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Peoria County typically lands around Apr 8, 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 29.
How long is the growing season in Peoria County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Peoria County sees about 205 frost-free days — roughly Apr 8 through Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 29 to Oct 16, about 170 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Peoria County?
The federal record around Peoria County is a meaningful one — 912 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (533), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 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.
Everything above is measured at Peoria County's scale — its 5b band and its 205-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Peoria County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Illinois's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Peoria County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Peoria County's own scale — its own ~205-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 912 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Peoria County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Peoria County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~205-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Peoria CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 912 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Peoria County's boundary and the 395,965 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~205-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Peoria County spans, Interior River Valleys and Hills the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Peoria County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Peoria County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Illinois grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Illinois
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Peoria County — the ~205 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Peoria County's 395,965 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 912 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Peoria Countyread your own land →