Olympia Fields, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Olympia Fields, 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 Olympia Fields 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 Olympia Fields — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Olympia Fields — the short answer
Olympia Fields, Illinois: USDA zone 6a, about 214 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- 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
- ~214
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 6a is Olympia Fields's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Olympia Fields's 214-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Olympia Fields
Each reading below is measured for Olympia Fields itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredOlympia Fields runs about 214 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
MeasuredOlympia Fields sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Olympia Fields is in
Olympia Fields sits in the Central Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Olympia Fields's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cook County.
What Grows in Olympia Fields
Every plant below cleared Olympia Fields's own zone 6a and its 214-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Olympia Fields?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (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 Olympia Fields
Spotted lanternfly documented 12 miles from Olympia Fields, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Olympia Fields
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Olympia Fields. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- OLYMPIA FIELDSPFAS · 1300 ft
- SIGNATURE CLEANERSBrownfields · 2400 ft
- Vollmer Rd. ReservoirUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- Olympia Fields Country ClubUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- VOLLMER ROAD RESEVOIRBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- Province Of Our Mother Of Good CUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- FLOSSMOOR PUBLIC WORKSBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- Meijer Gas #280Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- 35N13E-12.2b1Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- MEIJER STORE/GAS 280Brownfields · 1.0 mi
- FRANCISCAN HEALTH OLYMPIA FIELDSBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- Olympia Fields Village OfUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Olympia Fields'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 Olympia Fields.
Total Sites
2,211
within ~10 miles of Olympia Fields
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
42 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Olympia Fields
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Olympia Fields
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Olympia Fields, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Olympia Fields — PFAS (37 sites) and Superfund (42 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Olympia Fields
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 Olympia Fields average
Your land is one point inside Olympia Fields
Everything above resolves to Olympia Fields as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Olympia Fields Average
Olympia Fields Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Olympia Fields
- ●One soil character for all of Olympia Fields
- ●Frost dates read at Olympia Fields's scale: Apr 6 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Olympia Fields's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Olympia Fields
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Olympia Fields, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Olympia Fields averages can't show:
We read public map data around Olympia Fields — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Olympia Fields average
How we know this about Olympia Fields
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 Olympia Fields’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 Olympia Fields
When does frost risk typically end in Olympia Fields?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Olympia Fields typically lands around Apr 6, 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 27.
When is the first frost in Olympia Fields?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Olympia Fields 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 214 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Olympia Fields?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Olympia Fields sees about 214 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 23, about 179 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Olympia Fields?
The federal record around Olympia Fields runs heavier than most — 2,211 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,122), the nearest PFAS record about 0.2 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Olympia Fields?
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 Olympia Fields's scale — its 6a band and its 214-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Olympia Fields'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 Olympia Fields’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Olympia Fields's own scale — its own ~214-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,881 acres it covers and 2,211 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Olympia Fields's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Olympia Fields's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 6 and Nov 6 and the ~214-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,211 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Olympia Fields, the closest PFAS record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Olympia Fields's boundary and the 1,881 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~214-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Olympia Fields's own centroid, the Central Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Olympia Fieldslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Olympia Fields's 1,881 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cook County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cook 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 Cook County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Olympia Fields's 1,881 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Olympia Fields you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,881 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest PFAS 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 Olympia Fields-wide figureread your own land →