Hometown, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Growers here do well with cabbage, blueberry, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Hometown, 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 Hometown 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 Hometown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Hometown — the short answer
Hometown, Illinois: USDA zone 6a, about 226 days between hard freezes, across 307 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- 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
- ~226
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 307 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 6a is Hometown's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Hometown's 226-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Hometown
Each reading below is measured for Hometown itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHometown runs about 226 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
MeasuredHometown sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Hometown is in
Hometown sits in the Central Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Hometown's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cook County.
What Grows in Hometown
Every plant below cleared Hometown's own zone 6a and its 226-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Hometown?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 31 (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. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Hometown
Spotted lanternfly documented 5 miles from Hometown, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Hometown
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Hometown. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HOMETOWNPFAS · 25 ft
- Hometown City OfUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- Public Works DeptUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- PETE SAVAINOS AUTO REPAIR INCBrownfields · 1700 ft
- Hometown AutoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- South Side Gas, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- Kole Pontiac GMC IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- X-R-I TESTINGBrownfields · 2500 ft
- R U Cartage IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- DEMCO PRODUCTSBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- RUDYS AUTO AND REPAIRBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- BPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Hometown'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 Hometown.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Hometown
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Hometown
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Hometown, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Hometown — Superfund (117 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (486 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 Hometown
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 Hometown average
Your land is one point inside Hometown
Everything above resolves to Hometown as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 307 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 Hometown Average
Hometown Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Hometown
- ●One soil character for all of Hometown
- ●Frost dates read at Hometown's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Hometown's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Hometown
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Hometown, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Hometown averages can't show:
We read public map data around Hometown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hometown average
How we know this about Hometown
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 Hometown’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 Hometown
When does frost risk typically end in Hometown?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Hometown typically lands around Mar 31, 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 21.
When is the first frost in Hometown?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Hometown 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 226 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Hometown?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Hometown sees about 226 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 29, about 191 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Hometown?
The federal record around Hometown is a meaningful one — 5,491 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (2,797), the nearest PFAS 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 Hometown?
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 Hometown's scale — its 6a band and its 226-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Hometown'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 Hometown’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Hometown's own scale — its own ~226-day season between 28°F freezes, the 307 acres it covers and 5,491 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Hometown's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Hometown's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Nov 12 and the ~226-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 5,491 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Hometown, the closest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Hometown's boundary and the 307 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~226-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Hometown's own centroid, the Central Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Hometownlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Hometown's 307 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cook County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cook 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 Cook County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Hometown's 307 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Hometown you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 307 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest PFAS 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 Hometown-wide figureread your own land →