New Minden, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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 New Minden, 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 Minden 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 Minden — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
New Minden — the short answer
New Minden, Illinois: USDA zone 6b, about 226 days between hard freezes, across 177 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 25
- 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
- ~226
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 177 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 New Minden's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against New Minden's 226-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in New Minden
Each reading below is measured for New Minden itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNew Minden 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
MeasuredNew Minden 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 New Minden is in
New Minden sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at New Minden's own centroid rather than borrowed from Washington County.
What Grows in New Minden
Every plant below cleared New Minden's own zone 6b and its 226-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in New Minden?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 25 (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. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
What's on the federal record near New Minden
Closest first, within ~10 miles of New Minden. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Sprehes ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- Kemps Convenience CornerUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- Goodyear Asc 4691Underground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
- Shell Foodmart, L & N McDalesUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
- Little Nashville ConocoUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
- PURINA ANIMAL NUTRITION LLCToxics Release Inventory · 4.2 mi
- NASHVILLEPFAS · 4.2 mi
- Nashville CitgoUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- GDB INTERNATIONAL INCBrownfields · 4.3 mi
- ANTOLIN NASHVILLEBrownfields · 4.7 mi
- ANTOLIN NASHVILLEToxics Release Inventory · 4.7 mi
- Nascote Industries, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 4.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from New Minden'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 Minden.
Total Sites
84
within ~10 miles of New Minden
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of New Minden
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of New Minden
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around New Minden, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of New Minden — CAFO (6 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (55 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in New Minden
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 Minden average
Your land is one point inside New Minden
Everything above resolves to New Minden as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 177 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 Minden Average
New Minden Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across New Minden
- ●One soil character for all of New Minden
- ●Frost dates read at New Minden's scale: Mar 25 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not New Minden's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in New Minden
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in New Minden, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that New Minden averages can't show:
We read public map data around New Minden — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the New Minden average
How we know this about New Minden
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 Minden’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 Minden
When does frost risk typically end in New Minden?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in New Minden typically lands around Mar 25, 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 15.
When is the first frost in New Minden?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in New Minden 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 226 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in New Minden?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, New Minden sees about 226 frost-free days — roughly Mar 25 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 15 to Oct 23, about 191 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in New Minden?
The federal record around New Minden shows 84 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (55), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Minden?
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 New Minden's scale — its 6b band and its 226-day season. Your yard writes its own version of New Minden'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 Minden’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at New Minden's own scale — its own ~226-day season between 28°F freezes, the 177 acres it covers and 84 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- New Minden's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- New Minden's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 25 and Nov 6 and the ~226-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 84 documented contamination sites on the federal record near New Minden, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- New Minden's boundary and the 177 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~226-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at New Minden's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so New Minden's 177 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Washington County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Washington 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 Washington County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among New Minden's 177 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of New Minden you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 177 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Minden-wide figureread your own land →
More in Illinois
Wider growing context
What grows across IllinoisNew Minden sits outside our named growing regions, so Illinois as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides