Elsah, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Elsah, 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 Elsah 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 Elsah — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Elsah — the short answer
Elsah, Illinois: USDA zone 6b, about 234 days between hard freezes, across 699 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- 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 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~234
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 699 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 6b is Elsah's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Elsah's 234-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Elsah
Each reading below is measured for Elsah itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredElsah runs about 234 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
MeasuredElsah sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Elsah is in
Elsah sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Elsah's own centroid rather than borrowed from Jersey County.
What Grows in Elsah
Every plant below cleared Elsah's own zone 6b and its 234-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Elsah?
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 12 — 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.
Documented around Elsah
Survey cells within 31 miles of Elsah checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 226 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Elsah
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Elsah. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Principia CollegeUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- PRINCIPIA COLLEGE-HAYFIELD HOUSEBrownfields · 2300 ft
- Quarry Fire DistUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- LIBERTY HARBORUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- Elsah Township BldgUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- PALISADES YACHT CLUB INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- MY RIVER HOME BOAT HARBORUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- T48N R06E 16AAD1Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- T48N R06E 15BCB1Nitrate · 2.2 mi
- Lockhaven Country ClubUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- T48N R06E 22ACA1Nitrate · 3.4 mi
- Great Rivers Land TrustUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Elsah'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 Elsah.
Total Sites
184
within ~10 miles of Elsah
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Elsah
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Elsah
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
Check your specific parcel in Elsah
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 Elsah average
Your land is one point inside Elsah
Everything above resolves to Elsah as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 699 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 Elsah Average
Elsah Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Elsah
- ●One soil character for all of Elsah
- ●Frost dates read at Elsah's scale: Mar 23 to Nov 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Elsah's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Elsah
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Elsah, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Elsah averages can't show:
We read public map data around Elsah — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Elsah average
How we know this about Elsah
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 Elsah’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 Elsah
When does frost risk typically end in Elsah?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Elsah 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 Elsah?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Elsah typically arrives around Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 29, so the watching starts about Oct 13 — about 234 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Elsah?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Elsah sees about 234 frost-free days — roughly Mar 23 through Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 13 to Oct 29, about 199 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Elsah?
The federal record around Elsah is a meaningful one — 184 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (107), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Elsah?
From about Oct 13 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 12 (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 12. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Elsah's scale — its 6b band and its 234-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Elsah'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 Elsah’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Elsah's own scale — its own ~234-day season between 28°F freezes, the 699 acres it covers and 184 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Elsah's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Elsah's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 23 and Nov 12 and the ~234-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 184 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Elsah, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Elsah's boundary and the 699 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~234-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Elsah's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Elsah 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 Elsah's 699 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Jersey County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Jersey 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 Jersey County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Elsah's 699 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Elsah you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 699 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Elsah-wide figureread your own land →
More in Illinois
Wider growing context
What grows across IllinoisElsah sits outside our named growing regions, so Illinois as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides