Eldon, Iowa, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Eldon, 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 Eldon 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 Eldon — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Eldon — the short answer
Eldon, Iowa: USDA zone 6a, about 207 days between hard freezes, across 700 acres of city.
- 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)
- Oct 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~207
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 700 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 Eldon's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Eldon's 207-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Eldon
Each reading below is measured for Eldon itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredEldon runs about 207 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
MeasuredEldon 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 Eldon is in
Eldon sits in the Central Irregular Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Eldon's own centroid rather than borrowed from Wapello County.
What Grows in Eldon
Every plant below cleared Eldon's own zone 6a and its 207-day season. Each card opens that plant's Iowa profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Eldon?
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 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 Oct 30 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
What's on the federal record near Eldon
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Eldon. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- GOLDEN FURROW FERTILIZER INCBrownfields · 900 ft
- CARDINAL COMMUNITY SCHOOLSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- ELDON KWIK STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- 071N12W26CBAD 12922 1961Eldon 8Nitrate · 1700 ft
- 071N12W26BDC 1941Eldon 4Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- 071N12W26BDC 1941Eldon 3Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- 071N12W26BDC 1934Eldon 2Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- CASEY''S GENERAL STORE 1609Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Drill HoleMining · 2.1 mi
- 071N12W09DADC 11418 1960Cardinal Commun School 1Nitrate · 3.1 mi
- 071N12W01DDA 1965Nitrate · 3.9 mi
- 071N12W02DDAA 17646 1965Nitrate · 4.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Eldon'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 Eldon.
Total Sites
59
within ~10 miles of Eldon
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
6 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Eldon
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Eldon
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Eldon, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Eldon — Nitrate (30 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (6 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Eldon
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 Eldon average
Your land is one point inside Eldon
Everything above resolves to Eldon as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 700 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 Eldon Average
Eldon Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Eldon
- ●One soil character for all of Eldon
- ●Frost dates read at Eldon's scale: Apr 6 to Oct 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Eldon's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Eldon
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Eldon, Iowa — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Eldon averages can't show:
We read public map data around Eldon — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Eldon average
How we know this about Eldon
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 Eldon’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 Eldon
When does frost risk typically end in Eldon?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Eldon 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 Eldon?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Eldon typically arrives around Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 16, so the watching starts about Sep 30 — about 207 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Eldon?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Eldon sees about 207 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 16, about 172 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Eldon?
The federal record around Eldon shows 59 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (30), the nearest Brownfields 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 Eldon?
From about Sep 30 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 30 (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 30. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Eldon's scale — its 6a band and its 207-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Eldon'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 Eldon’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Eldon's own scale — its own ~207-day season between 28°F freezes, the 700 acres it covers and 59 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Eldon's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Eldon's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 6 and Oct 30 and the ~207-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 59 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Eldon, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Eldon's boundary and the 700 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~207-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Eldon's own centroid, the Central Irregular PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Eldon's 700 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Wapello County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Wapello 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 Wapello County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Eldon's 700 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Eldon you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 700 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Eldon-wide figureread your own land →