Hastings, Iowa, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
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 Hastings, 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 Hastings 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 Hastings — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Hastings — the short answer
Hastings, Iowa: USDA zone 5b, about 203 days between hard freezes, across 262 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- 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 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~203
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 262 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 Hastings's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Hastings's 203-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Hastings
Each reading below is measured for Hastings itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHastings runs about 203 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
MeasuredHastings 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 Hastings is in
Hastings sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Hastings's own centroid rather than borrowed from Mills County.
What Grows in Hastings
Every plant below cleared Hastings's own zone 5b and its 203-day season. Each card opens that plant's Iowa profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Hastings?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. 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 26 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Hastings
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Hastings. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- NISHNA VALLEY COMM SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- FORMER PERKINS SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- 072N41W24DAD 1965Hastings 1Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- CHARLES PHELPS FARMUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- 071N41W04AAAA 27836 1986IGS & USGS SW-36(U)Nitrate · 2.7 mi
- NATURAL GAS PIPELINE CO OF AMERICA - STATION 107Brownfields · 3.3 mi
- 072N41W27CCCC 1978Malvern 10Nitrate · 3.6 mi
- CHANTRY ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
- NATURAL GAS PIPELINE CO OF AMERICAUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.7 mi
- LINCOLN FARM & HOMEUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.8 mi
- DALES TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.8 mi
- BLACKBURN OIL COUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Hastings'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 Hastings.
Total Sites
52
within ~10 miles of Hastings
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 concentrated animal feeding operation
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Hastings
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Hastings
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Hastings, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 20 sites within ~10 miles of Hastings. 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.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Hastings
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 Hastings average
Your land is one point inside Hastings
Everything above resolves to Hastings as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 262 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 Hastings Average
Hastings Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Hastings
- ●One soil character for all of Hastings
- ●Frost dates read at Hastings's scale: Apr 6 to Oct 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Hastings's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Hastings
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Hastings, Iowa — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Hastings averages can't show:
We read public map data around Hastings — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hastings average
How we know this about Hastings
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 Hastings’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 Hastings
When does frost risk typically end in Hastings?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Hastings 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 Hastings?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Hastings typically arrives around Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 12, so the watching starts about Sep 26 — about 203 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Hastings?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Hastings sees about 203 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 12, about 168 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Hastings?
The federal record around Hastings shows 52 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (27), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Hastings?
From about Sep 26 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 26 (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 26. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Hastings's scale — its 5b band and its 203-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Hastings'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 Hastings’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Hastings's own scale — its own ~203-day season between 28°F freezes, the 262 acres it covers and 52 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Hastings's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Hastings's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 6 and Oct 26 and the ~203-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 52 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Hastings, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Hastings's boundary and the 262 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~203-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Hastings'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 Hastings's 262 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Mills County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Mills 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 Mills County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Hastings's 262 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Hastings you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 262 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Hastings-wide figureread your own land →
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