Kankakee, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
The conditions favor cabbage, blueberry, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Kankakee, 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 Kankakee 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 Kankakee — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Kankakee — the short answer
Kankakee, Illinois: USDA zone 5b, about 205 days between hard freezes, across 10K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~205
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 10K 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 5b is Kankakee's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Kankakee's 205-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Kankakee
Each reading below is measured for Kankakee itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredKankakee runs about 205 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
MeasuredKankakee sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b.
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 Kankakee is in
Kankakee sits in the Central Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Kankakee's own centroid rather than borrowed from Kankakee County.
What Grows in Kankakee
Every plant below cleared Kankakee's own zone 5b and its 205-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Kankakee?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 1 — 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 Kankakee
Survey cells within 31 miles of Kankakee checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 36 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Kankakee
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Kankakee. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Hicksatomic KankakeeUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- Shapiro Developmental CtrUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- Pepsi Cola General Bottlers IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- STEFANICH AFRCBrownfields · 2100 ft
- Rjn Env EngineersUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- Koerner Aviation IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- A N WEBER INCORPORATEDBrownfields · 2600 ft
- STEEL STRUCTURES INCToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- Kankakee Co Highway DeptUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- KANKAKEE COMMUNITY COLLEGEBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- Texize Divthe Dow Chemical CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- Kankakee Spring Co IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Kankakee'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 Kankakee.
Total Sites
438
within ~10 miles of Kankakee
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
39 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Kankakee
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Kankakee
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Kankakee, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 39 sites within ~10 miles of Kankakee. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Kankakee
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 Kankakee average
Your land is one point inside Kankakee
Everything above resolves to Kankakee as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 10K 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 Kankakee Average
Kankakee Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Kankakee
- ●One soil character for all of Kankakee
- ●Frost dates read at Kankakee's scale: Apr 10 to Nov 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Kankakee's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Kankakee
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Kankakee, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Kankakee averages can't show:
We read public map data around Kankakee — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Kankakee average
How we know this about Kankakee
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 Kankakee’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 Kankakee
When does frost risk typically end in Kankakee?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Kankakee typically lands around Apr 10, 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 May 1.
When is the first frost in Kankakee?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Kankakee typically arrives around Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 18, so the watching starts about Oct 2 — about 205 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Kankakee?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Kankakee sees about 205 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Oct 18, about 170 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Kankakee?
The federal record around Kankakee is a meaningful one — 438 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (231), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Kankakee?
From about Oct 2 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 1 (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 1. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Kankakee's scale — its 5b band and its 205-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Kankakee'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 Kankakee’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Kankakee's own scale — its own ~205-day season between 28°F freezes, the 9,693 acres it covers and 438 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Kankakee's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Kankakee's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 10 and Nov 1 and the ~205-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 438 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Kankakee, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Kankakee's boundary and the 9,693 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~205-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Kankakee's own centroid, the Central Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Kankakee 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 Kankakee's 9,693 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Kankakee County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Kankakee 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 Kankakee County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Kankakee's 9,693 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Kankakee you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 9,693 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 Kankakee-wide figureread your own land →
More in Illinois
Wider growing context
What grows across IllinoisKankakee sits outside our named growing regions, so Illinois as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides