East Carondelet, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in East Carondelet, 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 East Carondelet 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 East Carondelet — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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East Carondelet — the short answer
East Carondelet, Illinois: USDA zone 7a, about 232 days between hard freezes, across 753 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~232
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 753 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 East Carondelet's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against East Carondelet's 232-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in East Carondelet
Each reading below is measured for East Carondelet itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredEast Carondelet runs about 232 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
MeasuredEast Carondelet 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 East Carondelet is in
East Carondelet sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at East Carondelet's own centroid rather than borrowed from St. Clair County.
What Grows in East Carondelet
Every plant below cleared East Carondelet's own zone 7a and its 232-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in East Carondelet?
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 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 23 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 10 — 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 East Carondelet
Survey cells within 31 miles of East Carondelet checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 247 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near East Carondelet
Closest first, within ~10 miles of East Carondelet. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- US DURUM MILLING INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- OSAGE MARINE SERVICES INCBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- ASHLAND DISTRIBUTION COMPANY-ST LOUIS PLANTBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- ASHLAND DISTRIBUTION COMPANY-ST LOUIS PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 0.9 mi
- ACBL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES LLCBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- LIBERTY FOUNDRY COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- ERGON ASPHALT PARTNERS LP ST LOUISToxics Release Inventory · 1.1 mi
- ERGON ASPHALT PARTNERS LP ST LOUISBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- ULTIMATE AUTO BODY INCBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- BULK HAULERS, INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- US POLYMERS, INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- US POLYMERS ACCUREZ LLCToxics Release Inventory · 1.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from East Carondelet'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 East Carondelet.
Total Sites
3,199
within ~10 miles of East Carondelet
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
64 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of East Carondelet
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of East Carondelet
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around East Carondelet, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of East Carondelet — Superfund (64 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (224 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in East Carondelet
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 East Carondelet average
Your land is one point inside East Carondelet
Everything above resolves to East Carondelet as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 753 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 East Carondelet Average
East Carondelet Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across East Carondelet
- ●One soil character for all of East Carondelet
- ●Frost dates read at East Carondelet's scale: Mar 23 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not East Carondelet's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in East Carondelet
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in East Carondelet, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that East Carondelet averages can't show:
We read public map data around East Carondelet — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the East Carondelet average
How we know this about East Carondelet
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 East Carondelet’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 East Carondelet
When does frost risk typically end in East Carondelet?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in East Carondelet typically lands around Mar 23, 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 13.
When is the first frost in East Carondelet?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in East Carondelet typically arrives around Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 27, so the watching starts about Oct 11 — about 232 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in East Carondelet?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, East Carondelet sees about 232 frost-free days — roughly Mar 23 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 13 to Oct 27, about 197 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in East Carondelet?
The federal record around East Carondelet is a meaningful one — 3,199 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,982), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.9 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 East Carondelet?
From about Oct 11 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 10 (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 10. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at East Carondelet's scale — its 7a band and its 232-day season. Your yard writes its own version of East Carondelet'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 East Carondelet’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at East Carondelet's own scale — its own ~232-day season between 28°F freezes, the 753 acres it covers and 3,199 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- East Carondelet's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- East Carondelet's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 23 and Nov 10 and the ~232-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 3,199 documented contamination sites on the federal record near East Carondelet, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.9 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- East Carondelet's boundary and the 753 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~232-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at East Carondelet's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around East Carondelet 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 East Carondelet's 753 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom St. Clair County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom St. Clair 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 St. Clair County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among East Carondelet's 753 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of East Carondelet you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 753 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.9 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 East Carondelet-wide figureread your own land →
More in Illinois
Wider growing context
What grows across IllinoisEast Carondelet sits outside our named growing regions, so Illinois as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides