Sauget, 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.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Sauget, 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 Sauget 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 Sauget — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Sauget — the short answer
Sauget, Illinois: USDA zone 7a, about 231 days between hard freezes, across 3K 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 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~231
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 Sauget's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Sauget's 231-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Sauget
Each reading below is measured for Sauget itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSauget runs about 231 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
MeasuredSauget 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 Sauget is in
Sauget sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Sauget's own centroid rather than borrowed from St. Clair County.
What Grows in Sauget
Every plant below cleared Sauget's own zone 7a and its 231-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Sauget?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. 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 10 — 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.
Documented around Sauget
Survey cells within 31 miles of Sauget checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 242 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Sauget
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Sauget. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- STELLAR MANUFACTURING LLCBrownfields · 800 ft
- FEDERAL EXPRESS ZSSTBrownfields · 1200 ft
- AMAZON PHARMACY - PIL2Brownfields · 1600 ft
- DOWNTOWN AIRPORT MAINT FACBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- St Louis Downtown-Parks AirportUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- St Louis Dwntwn-Parks AirptUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Ideal Aviation Illinois, LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- GREENWOOD MOTORLINES DBA R&L CARRIERSBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- R & L Carriers ParkwayUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- GULFSTREAM AEROSPACE SERVICES CORPBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- Mobil Sauget TerminalUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- YVONNE SAUGET (TRUST)Superfund · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Sauget'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 Sauget.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Sauget
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Sauget
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Sauget, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Sauget — Superfund (78 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (262 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Sauget
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 Sauget average
Your land is one point inside Sauget
Everything above resolves to Sauget as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Sauget Average
Sauget Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Sauget
- ●One soil character for all of Sauget
- ●Frost dates read at Sauget's scale: Mar 24 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Sauget's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Sauget
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Sauget, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Sauget averages can't show:
We read public map data around Sauget — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Sauget average
How we know this about Sauget
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 Sauget’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 Sauget
When does frost risk typically end in Sauget?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Sauget 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 Sauget?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Sauget typically arrives around Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 27, so the watching starts about Oct 11 — about 231 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Sauget?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Sauget sees about 231 frost-free days — roughly Mar 24 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 14 to Oct 27, about 196 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Sauget?
The federal record around Sauget runs heavier than most — 3,282 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (2,005), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.1 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 Sauget?
From about Oct 11 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 10 (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 10. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Sauget's scale — its 7a band and its 231-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Sauget'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 Sauget’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Sauget's own scale — its own ~231-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,936 acres it covers and 3,282 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Sauget's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Sauget's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 24 and Nov 10 and the ~231-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 3,282 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Sauget, the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Sauget's boundary and the 2,936 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~231-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Sauget's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Sauget 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 Sauget's 2,936 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom St. Clair County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom St. Clair 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 St. Clair County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Sauget's 2,936 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Sauget you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,936 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 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 Sauget-wide figureread your own land →
More in Illinois
Wider growing context
What grows across IllinoisSauget sits outside our named growing regions, so Illinois as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides