New Burnside, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in New Burnside, 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 New Burnside 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 New Burnside — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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New Burnside — the short answer
New Burnside, Illinois: USDA zone 7a, about 225 days between hard freezes, across 669 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 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~225
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 669 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 New Burnside's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against New Burnside's 225-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in New Burnside
Each reading below is measured for New Burnside itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNew Burnside runs about 225 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
MeasuredNew Burnside 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 New Burnside is in
New Burnside sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at New Burnside's own centroid rather than borrowed from Johnson County.
What Grows in New Burnside
Every plant below cleared New Burnside's own zone 7a and its 225-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in New Burnside?
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 9 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
What's on the federal record near New Burnside
Closest first, within ~10 miles of New Burnside. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Cross ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- Josh's Jot'em DownUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
- Creal Springs Mini Mart, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
- Blackman Virgil HUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
- David Ham StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.7 mi
- Edwards-Etherton Oil Co IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.8 mi
- Stonefort Service StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.4 mi
- New Simpson Hill Dist #32Underground Storage Tanks · 5.5 mi
- Will Scarlet MineUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.8 mi
- Egyptian Hills Marina & CampgroundUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.8 mi
- Shawnee Low Interest Fluorine DepositMining · 6.8 mi
- SALINE VALLEY CONSERVANCY DISTRICTPFAS · 6.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from New Burnside'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 New Burnside.
Total Sites
30
within ~10 miles of New Burnside
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 mining site (prospects, none worked)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of New Burnside
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of New Burnside
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around New Burnside, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 21 sites within ~10 miles of New Burnside. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 New Burnside
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 New Burnside average
Your land is one point inside New Burnside
Everything above resolves to New Burnside as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 669 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 New Burnside Average
New Burnside Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across New Burnside
- ●One soil character for all of New Burnside
- ●Frost dates read at New Burnside's scale: Mar 29 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not New Burnside's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in New Burnside
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in New Burnside, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that New Burnside averages can't show:
We read public map data around New Burnside — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the New Burnside average
How we know this about New Burnside
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 New Burnside’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 New Burnside
When does frost risk typically end in New Burnside?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in New Burnside 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 New Burnside?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in New Burnside typically arrives around Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 26, so the watching starts about Oct 10 — about 225 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in New Burnside?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, New Burnside sees about 225 frost-free days — roughly Mar 29 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 19 to Oct 26, about 190 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in New Burnside?
The federal record around New Burnside shows 30 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (21), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 miles 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 New Burnside?
From about Oct 10 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 9 (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 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at New Burnside's scale — its 7a band and its 225-day season. Your yard writes its own version of New Burnside'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 New Burnside’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at New Burnside's own scale — its own ~225-day season between 28°F freezes, the 669 acres it covers and 30 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- New Burnside's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- New Burnside's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 29 and Nov 9 and the ~225-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 30 documented contamination sites on the federal record near New Burnside, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- New Burnside's boundary and the 669 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~225-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at New Burnside's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so New Burnside's 669 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Johnson County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Johnson 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 Johnson County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among New Burnside's 669 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of New Burnside you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 669 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 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 New Burnside-wide figureread your own land →