Dickens, Iowa, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Dickens, 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 Dickens 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 Dickens — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Dickens — the short answer
Dickens, Iowa: USDA zone 5a, about 182 days between hard freezes, across 534 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~182
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 534 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 Dickens's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Dickens's 182-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Dickens
Each reading below is measured for Dickens itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDickens runs about 182 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
MeasuredDickens 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 Dickens is in
Dickens sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Dickens's own centroid rather than borrowed from Clay County.
What Grows in Dickens
Every plant below cleared Dickens's own zone 5a and its 182-day season. Each card opens that plant's Iowa profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Dickens?
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 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 18 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 17 — 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 Dickens
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Dickens. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CLAY COUNTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- 096N35W18ACAC 1969Dickens 1Nitrate · 1400 ft
- WALSH PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- 096N35W17BDBCNitrate · 0.8 mi
- 096N36W08CCDA 10400 1958Spencer 1Nitrate · 5.3 mi
- 096N36W08CBDD 1948Spencer 2Nitrate · 5.3 mi
- 096N36W08CBDA 1948Spencer 1Nitrate · 5.3 mi
- ST LUKE LUTHERAN HOMEUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.4 mi
- TECTON INDUSTRIES INCBrownfields · 5.4 mi
- 096N36W08CBDD 42566 1948Spencer 4Nitrate · 5.4 mi
- 096N36W08CCAB 1948Spencer 3Nitrate · 5.4 mi
- SHINE BROTHERS CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Dickens'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 Dickens.
Total Sites
185
within ~10 miles of Dickens
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Dickens
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Dickens
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
Check your specific parcel in Dickens
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 Dickens average
Your land is one point inside Dickens
Everything above resolves to Dickens as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 534 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 Dickens Average
Dickens Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Dickens
- ●One soil character for all of Dickens
- ●Frost dates read at Dickens's scale: Apr 18 to Oct 17
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Dickens's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Dickens
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Dickens, Iowa — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Dickens averages can't show:
We read public map data around Dickens — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Dickens average
How we know this about Dickens
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 Dickens’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 Dickens
When does frost risk typically end in Dickens?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Dickens typically lands around Apr 18, 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 9.
When is the first frost in Dickens?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Dickens typically arrives around Oct 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 3, so the watching starts about Sep 17 — about 182 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Dickens?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Dickens sees about 182 frost-free days — roughly Apr 18 through Oct 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 9 to Oct 3, about 147 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Dickens?
The federal record around Dickens shows 185 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (101), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles 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 Dickens?
From about Sep 17 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 17 (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 17. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Dickens's scale — its 5a band and its 182-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Dickens'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 Dickens’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Dickens's own scale — its own ~182-day season between 28°F freezes, the 534 acres it covers and 185 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Dickens's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Dickens's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 18 and Oct 17 and the ~182-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 185 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Dickens, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Dickens's boundary and the 534 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~182-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Dickens'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 Dickens's 534 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Clay County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Clay 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 Clay County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Dickens's 534 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Dickens you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 534 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 Dickens-wide figureread your own land →
More in Iowa
Wider growing context
What grows across IowaDickens sits outside our named growing regions, so Iowa as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides