Creal Springs, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Creal Springs, 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 Creal Springs 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 Creal Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Creal Springs — the short answer
Creal Springs, Illinois: USDA zone 7a, about 220 days between hard freezes, across 657 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~220
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 657 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 7a is Creal Springs's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Creal Springs's 220-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Creal Springs
Each reading below is measured for Creal Springs itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCreal Springs runs about 220 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
MeasuredCreal Springs sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Creal Springs is in
Creal Springs sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Creal Springs's own centroid rather than borrowed from Williamson County.
What Grows in Creal Springs
Every plant below cleared Creal Springs's own zone 7a and its 220-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Creal Springs?
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 Mar 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 29 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 4 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Creal Springs
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Creal Springs. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Creal Springs Mini Mart, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- David Ham StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- Edwards-Etherton Oil Co IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- TEPPCO- CREAL SPRINGS TERMINALBrownfields · 2.8 mi
- Egyptian Hills Marina & CampgroundUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.9 mi
- Cross ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- Lake of Egypt SupermarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.1 mi
- Pyramid Acres MarinaUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.2 mi
- DOLLAR GENERAL STORE 13665Brownfields · 5.2 mi
- WHEELER ENGINE SVCBrownfields · 5.5 mi
- DUSTINS AUTOMOTIVEBrownfields · 5.6 mi
- Lake Egypt Water DistUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Creal Springs'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 Creal Springs.
Total Sites
150
within ~10 miles of Creal Springs
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Creal Springs
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Creal Springs
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Creal Springs, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Creal Springs — PFAS (3 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (106 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Creal Springs
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 Creal Springs average
Your land is one point inside Creal Springs
Everything above resolves to Creal Springs as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 657 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 city 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 Creal Springs Average
Creal Springs Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Creal Springs
- ●One soil character for all of Creal Springs
- ●Frost dates read at Creal Springs's scale: Mar 29 to Nov 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Creal Springs's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Creal Springs
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Creal Springs, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Creal Springs averages can't show:
We read public map data around Creal Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Creal Springs average
How we know this about Creal Springs
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Creal Springs’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Creal Springs
When does frost risk typically end in Creal Springs?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Creal Springs typically lands around Mar 29, 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 19.
When is the first frost in Creal Springs?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Creal Springs typically arrives around Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 21, so the watching starts about Oct 5 — about 220 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Creal Springs?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Creal Springs sees about 220 frost-free days — roughly Mar 29 through Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 19 to Oct 21, about 185 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Creal Springs?
The federal record around Creal Springs is a meaningful one — 150 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (106), 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 Creal Springs?
From about Oct 5 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 4 (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 4. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Creal Springs's scale — its 7a band and its 220-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Creal Springs'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 Creal Springs’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Creal Springs's own scale — its own ~220-day season between 28°F freezes, the 657 acres it covers and 150 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Creal Springs's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Creal Springs's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 29 and Nov 4 and the ~220-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 150 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Creal Springs, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Creal Springs's boundary and the 657 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~220-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Creal Springs's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Creal Springs's 657 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Williamson County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Williamson 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 Williamson County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Creal Springs's 657 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Creal Springs you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 657 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 Creal Springs-wide figureread your own land →