Elizabethtown, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Elizabethtown, 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 Elizabethtown 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 Elizabethtown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Elizabethtown — the short answer
Elizabethtown, Illinois: USDA zone 7a, about 223 days between hard freezes, across 451 acres of town.
- 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 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~223
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 451 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 Elizabethtown's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Elizabethtown's 223-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Elizabethtown
Each reading below is measured for Elizabethtown itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredElizabethtown runs about 223 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
MeasuredElizabethtown 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 Elizabethtown is in
Elizabethtown sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Elizabethtown's own centroid rather than borrowed from Hardin County.
What Grows in Elizabethtown
Every plant below cleared Elizabethtown's own zone 7a and its 223-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Elizabethtown?
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 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 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 Elizabethtown
Survey cells within 31 miles of Elizabethtown checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 127 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Elizabethtown
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Elizabethtown. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- David Reed SunocoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- E-Town Riverport ExpressUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- Reeds Grocery, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- FRICKER MACHINE SHOPBrownfields · 1.2 mi
- IDOT ELIZABETHTOWN TEAM SECTION 922EBrownfields · 1.2 mi
- Hardin County Hwy DeptUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- Hardin County K-12 SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- Robinson Oil CompanyUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- HillsideMining · 2.2 mi
- Midway ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- ROSICLARE MINESSuperfund · 2.3 mi
- Daisy-Daisy Vein No.2 ShaftMining · 2.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Elizabethtown'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 Elizabethtown.
Total Sites
140
within ~10 miles of Elizabethtown
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Elizabethtown
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Elizabethtown
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Elizabethtown, Mining runs higher than the national average — 77 sites within ~10 miles of Elizabethtown. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Elizabethtown
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 Elizabethtown average
Your land is one point inside Elizabethtown
Everything above resolves to Elizabethtown as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 451 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 Elizabethtown Average
Elizabethtown Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Elizabethtown
- ●One soil character for all of Elizabethtown
- ●Frost dates read at Elizabethtown's scale: Mar 29 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Elizabethtown's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Elizabethtown
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Elizabethtown, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Elizabethtown averages can't show:
We read public map data around Elizabethtown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Elizabethtown average
How we know this about Elizabethtown
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 Elizabethtown’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 Elizabethtown
When does frost risk typically end in Elizabethtown?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Elizabethtown 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 Elizabethtown?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Elizabethtown 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 223 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Elizabethtown?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Elizabethtown sees about 223 frost-free days — roughly Mar 29 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 19 to Oct 24, about 188 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Elizabethtown?
The federal record around Elizabethtown runs heavier than most — 140 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (77), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Elizabethtown?
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 Elizabethtown's scale — its 7a band and its 223-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Elizabethtown'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 Elizabethtown’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Elizabethtown's own scale — its own ~223-day season between 28°F freezes, the 451 acres it covers and 140 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Elizabethtown's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Elizabethtown's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 29 and Nov 7 and the ~223-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 140 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Elizabethtown, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Elizabethtown's boundary and the 451 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~223-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Elizabethtown's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Elizabethtown 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 Elizabethtown's 451 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Hardin County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Hardin 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 Hardin County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Elizabethtown's 451 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Elizabethtown you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 451 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 Elizabethtown-wide figureread your own land →