Medora, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Medora, 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 Medora 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 Medora — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Medora — the short answer
Medora, Illinois: USDA zone 6b, about 222 days between hard freezes, across 243 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- 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 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~222
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 243 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 Medora's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Medora's 222-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Medora
Each reading below is measured for Medora itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMedora runs about 222 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
MeasuredMedora 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 Medora is in
Medora sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Medora's own centroid rather than borrowed from Macoupin County.
What Grows in Medora
Every plant below cleared Medora's own zone 6b and its 222-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Medora?
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 6 — 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 Medora
Survey cells within 31 miles of Medora checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 207 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Medora
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Medora. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- H & H Auto SerUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- Strunk Motor, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- Medora Fs IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- MEDORA FS, INC.Brownfields · 1.2 mi
- Darr's Truck StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Bucks CrossingUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- Piasa ElevatorUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.2 mi
- Mjm Eletric Cooperative IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- Reno GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- CHS INC. - SHIPMANToxics Release Inventory · 5.1 mi
- CHSUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.3 mi
- Southwestern Crop Ser IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Medora'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 Medora.
Total Sites
48
within ~10 miles of Medora
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Medora
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Medora
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Medora, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 42 sites within ~10 miles of Medora. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Medora
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 Medora average
Your land is one point inside Medora
Everything above resolves to Medora as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 243 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 Medora Average
Medora Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Medora
- ●One soil character for all of Medora
- ●Frost dates read at Medora's scale: Mar 29 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Medora's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Medora
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Medora, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Medora averages can't show:
We read public map data around Medora — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Medora average
How we know this about Medora
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 Medora’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 Medora
When does frost risk typically end in Medora?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Medora 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 Medora?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Medora typically arrives around Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 23, so the watching starts about Oct 7 — about 222 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Medora?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Medora sees about 222 frost-free days — roughly Mar 29 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 19 to Oct 23, about 187 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Medora?
The federal record around Medora shows 48 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (42), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Medora?
From about Oct 7 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 6 (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 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Medora's scale — its 6b band and its 222-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Medora'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 Medora’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Medora's own scale — its own ~222-day season between 28°F freezes, the 243 acres it covers and 48 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Medora's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Medora's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 29 and Nov 6 and the ~222-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 48 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Medora, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Medora's boundary and the 243 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~222-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Medora's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Medora 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 Medora's 243 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Macoupin County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Macoupin 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 Macoupin County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Medora's 243 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Medora you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 243 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Medora-wide figureread your own land →
More in Illinois
Wider growing context
What grows across IllinoisMedora sits outside our named growing regions, so Illinois as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides