Old Shawneetown, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
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 Old Shawneetown, 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 Old Shawneetown 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 Old Shawneetown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Old Shawneetown — the short answer
Old Shawneetown, Illinois: USDA zone 7a, about 232 days between hard freezes, across 326 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~232
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 326 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 Old Shawneetown's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Old Shawneetown's 232-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Old Shawneetown
Each reading below is measured for Old Shawneetown itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredOld Shawneetown runs about 232 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
MeasuredOld Shawneetown 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 Old Shawneetown is in
Old Shawneetown sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Old Shawneetown's own centroid rather than borrowed from Gallatin County.
What Grows in Old Shawneetown
Every plant below cleared Old Shawneetown's own zone 7a and its 232-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Old Shawneetown?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 24; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 24 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 11 — 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 Old Shawneetown
Survey cells within 31 miles of Old Shawneetown checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 133 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Old Shawneetown
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Old Shawneetown. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Delta Materials IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- 9S10E-32.6e3Nitrate · 1500 ft
- BUNGE NORTH AMERICA INCBrownfields · 1700 ft
- Eagle DockUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- Amoco StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- Southeast Gallatin Unit #2Underground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- Ajax Engineering CorpUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- Thorntons Auto Parts & Sales IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- DOLLAR GENERAL STORE 11119Brownfields · 2.7 mi
- Country CornerUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- Oldham Bros IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- Smokin JoesUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Old Shawneetown'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 Old Shawneetown.
Total Sites
63
within ~10 miles of Old Shawneetown
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Old Shawneetown
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Old Shawneetown
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Old Shawneetown, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 49 sites within ~10 miles of Old Shawneetown. 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 Old Shawneetown
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 Old Shawneetown average
Your land is one point inside Old Shawneetown
Everything above resolves to Old Shawneetown as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 326 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 Old Shawneetown Average
Old Shawneetown Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Old Shawneetown
- ●One soil character for all of Old Shawneetown
- ●Frost dates read at Old Shawneetown's scale: Mar 24 to Nov 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Old Shawneetown's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Old Shawneetown
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Old Shawneetown, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Old Shawneetown averages can't show:
We read public map data around Old Shawneetown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Old Shawneetown average
How we know this about Old Shawneetown
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 Old Shawneetown’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 Old Shawneetown
When does frost risk typically end in Old Shawneetown?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Old Shawneetown typically lands around Mar 24, 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 14.
When is the first frost in Old Shawneetown?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Old Shawneetown typically arrives around Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 28, so the watching starts about Oct 12 — about 232 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Old Shawneetown?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Old Shawneetown sees about 232 frost-free days — roughly Mar 24 through Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 14 to Oct 28, about 197 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Old Shawneetown?
The federal record around Old Shawneetown is a meaningful one — 63 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (49), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Old Shawneetown?
From about Oct 12 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 11 (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 11. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Old Shawneetown's scale — its 7a band and its 232-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Old Shawneetown'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 Old Shawneetown’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Old Shawneetown's own scale — its own ~232-day season between 28°F freezes, the 326 acres it covers and 63 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Old Shawneetown's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Old Shawneetown's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 24 and Nov 11 and the ~232-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 63 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Old Shawneetown, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Old Shawneetown's boundary and the 326 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~232-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Old Shawneetown's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Old Shawneetown 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 Old Shawneetown's 326 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Gallatin County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Gallatin 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 Gallatin County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Old Shawneetown's 326 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Old Shawneetown you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 326 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 Old Shawneetown-wide figureread your own land →