Bayard, Iowa, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Growers here do well with cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Bayard, 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 Bayard 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 Bayard — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Bayard — the short answer
Bayard, Iowa: USDA zone 5a, about 186 days between hard freezes, across 284 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~186
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 284 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 5a is Bayard's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bayard's 186-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Bayard
Each reading below is measured for Bayard itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBayard runs about 186 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredBayard sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a.
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 Bayard is in
Bayard sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Bayard's own centroid rather than borrowed from Guthrie County.
What Grows in Bayard
Every plant below cleared Bayard's own zone 5a and its 186-day season. Each card opens that plant's Iowa profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Bayard?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 18; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 15 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 18 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Late in the year the fall bench takes over — quick greens, radishes, and garlic that repays you next summer.
What's on the federal record near Bayard
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Bayard. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 081N32W03DBDD 12608 1960Bayard 2Nitrate · 450 ft
- 081N32W03DCAD 34666 1912Bayard 1Nitrate · 550 ft
- LANDUS COOPERATIVE - BAYARDBrownfields · 650 ft
- STAR ENERGY #013Underground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- SPARKYS ONE STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- BAYARD COMM SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- MCALISTER PARTS & EQUIPMENT INCBrownfields · 2400 ft
- HOME FARMUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- POET BIOREFING - COON RAPIDS LLCBrownfields · 3.8 mi
- POET BIOREFING - COON RAPIDS LLCToxics Release Inventory · 3.8 mi
- 081N31W32CBCC 26738 1982IGS & USGS WC-106Nitrate · 5.9 mi
- T & DUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bayard'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 Bayard.
Total Sites
80
within ~10 miles of Bayard
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Bayard
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Bayard
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bayard, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 42 sites within ~10 miles of Bayard. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Bayard
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 Bayard average
Your land is one point inside Bayard
Everything above resolves to Bayard as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 284 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 city 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 Bayard Average
Bayard Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Bayard
- ●One soil character for all of Bayard
- ●Frost dates read at Bayard's scale: Apr 15 to Oct 18
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bayard's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Bayard
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bayard, Iowa — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bayard averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bayard — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bayard average
How we know this about Bayard
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Bayard’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Bayard
When does frost risk typically end in Bayard?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bayard typically lands around Apr 15, 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 May 6.
When is the first frost in Bayard?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Bayard typically arrives around Oct 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 4, so the watching starts about Sep 18 — about 186 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Bayard?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bayard sees about 186 frost-free days — roughly Apr 15 through Oct 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 6 to Oct 4, about 151 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bayard?
The federal record around Bayard shows 80 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (42), the nearest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile 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 Bayard?
From about Sep 18 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 Oct 18 (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 Oct 18. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Bayard's scale — its 5a band and its 186-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bayard'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 Bayard’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Bayard's own scale — its own ~186-day season between 28°F freezes, the 284 acres it covers and 80 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bayard's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bayard's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 15 and Oct 18 and the ~186-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 80 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Bayard, the closest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Bayard's boundary and the 284 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~186-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Bayard's own centroid, the Western Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Bayard's 284 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Guthrie County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Guthrie County
- The growing challenges every Iowa grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Iowa
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Guthrie County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bayard's 284 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Bayard you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 284 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile 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 Bayard-wide figureread your own land →
More in Iowa
Wider growing context
What grows across IowaBayard sits outside our named growing regions, so Iowa as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides