Des Moines, Iowa, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
On paper, cabbage, blueberry, lavender, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Des Moines, 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 Des Moines 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 Des Moines — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Des Moines — the short answer
Des Moines, Iowa: USDA zone 5b, about 206 days between hard freezes, across 56K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~206
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 56K 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 5b is Des Moines's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Des Moines's 206-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Des Moines
Each reading below is measured for Des Moines itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDes Moines runs about 206 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
MeasuredDes Moines sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b.
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 Des Moines is in
Des Moines sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Des Moines's own centroid rather than borrowed from Polk County.
What Grows in Des Moines
Every plant below cleared Des Moines's own zone 5b and its 206-day season. Each card opens that plant's Iowa profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Des Moines?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 28 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
What's on the federal record near Des Moines
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Des Moines. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- AIR TEX CORPToxics Release Inventory · 1000 ft
- AIR TEX CORPBrownfields · 1000 ft
- DES MOINES ICE COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- KWIK SHOP #538Underground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- DES MOINES FIRE STATION #6Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- PHILLIP''S 66Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- FORMER DAN''S LAWN SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- GILLOTTI CONSTRUCTION COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- MASSEY-FERGUSON INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- ROCK ISLAND MOTOR GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- HIGHLAND HILLS WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- CHAMPION CRANE SERVICE INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Des Moines'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 Des Moines.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Des Moines
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Des Moines
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •TRI facilities report what they release. Check the wind — downwind beds catch more of it.
Check your specific parcel in Des Moines
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 Des Moines average
Your land is one point inside Des Moines
Everything above resolves to Des Moines as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 56K 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 Des Moines Average
Des Moines Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Des Moines
- ●One soil character for all of Des Moines
- ●Frost dates read at Des Moines's scale: Apr 5 to Oct 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Des Moines's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Des Moines
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Des Moines, Iowa — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Des Moines averages can't show:
We read public map data around Des Moines — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Des Moines average
How we know this about Des Moines
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 Des Moines’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 Des Moines
When does frost risk typically end in Des Moines?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Des Moines typically lands around Apr 5, 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 26.
When is the first frost in Des Moines?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Des Moines typically arrives around Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 14, so the watching starts about Sep 28 — about 206 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Des Moines?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Des Moines sees about 206 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 14, about 171 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Des Moines?
The federal record around Des Moines runs heavier than most — 1,770 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,012), the nearest Toxics Release Inventory 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 Des Moines?
From about Sep 28 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 28 (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 28. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Des Moines's scale — its 5b band and its 206-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Des Moines'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 Des Moines’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Des Moines's own scale — its own ~206-day season between 28°F freezes, the 56,422 acres it covers and 1,770 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Des Moines's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Des Moines's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Oct 28 and the ~206-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,770 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Des Moines, the closest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Des Moines's boundary and the 56,422 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~206-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Des Moines'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 Des Moines's 56,422 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Polk County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Polk 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 Polk County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Des Moines's 56,422 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Des Moines you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 56,422 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Toxics Release Inventory 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 Des Moines-wide figureread your own land →
More in Iowa
Wider growing context
What grows across IowaDes Moines sits outside our named growing regions, so Iowa as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides