Kamrar, 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.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, cranberry, 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 Kamrar, 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 Kamrar 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 Kamrar — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Kamrar — the short answer
Kamrar, Iowa: USDA zone 5a, about 186 days between hard freezes, across 545 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~186
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 545 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 Kamrar's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Kamrar's 186-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Kamrar
Each reading below is measured for Kamrar itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredKamrar 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
MeasuredKamrar 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 Kamrar is in
Kamrar sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Kamrar's own centroid rather than borrowed from Hamilton County.
What Grows in Kamrar
Every plant below cleared Kamrar'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 Kamrar?
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 19; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 16 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 19 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. As the window narrows, the plantings just get faster — fall brassicas, then greens, then garlic to finish.
What's on the federal record near Kamrar
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Kamrar. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HAMILTON CO LANDFILLUnderground Storage Tanks · 75 ft
- HUISMAN GERALD L & GREENFIELD GENE GUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- NORTHEAST HAMILTON SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- UNITED COOPERATIVEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- 087N25W26ACBD 08850 1957Nitrate · 4.8 mi
- IDOT FACILITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.2 mi
- POET BIOREFINING - JEWELL LLCToxics Release Inventory · 5.6 mi
- POET BIOREFINING - JEWELL LLCBrownfields · 5.6 mi
- VAN DIEST SUPPLY COUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.8 mi
- U S WESTUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.8 mi
- VARIETY AUTOUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.8 mi
- JIFFY PLUMBING HEATING & AIR COND INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Kamrar'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 Kamrar.
Total Sites
191
within ~10 miles of Kamrar
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
10 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Kamrar
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Kamrar
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 Kamrar
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 Kamrar average
Your land is one point inside Kamrar
Everything above resolves to Kamrar as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 545 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 Kamrar Average
Kamrar Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Kamrar
- ●One soil character for all of Kamrar
- ●Frost dates read at Kamrar's scale: Apr 16 to Oct 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Kamrar's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Kamrar
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Kamrar, Iowa — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Kamrar averages can't show:
We read public map data around Kamrar — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Kamrar average
How we know this about Kamrar
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 Kamrar’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 Kamrar
When does frost risk typically end in Kamrar?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Kamrar typically lands around Apr 16, 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 7.
When is the first frost in Kamrar?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Kamrar typically arrives around Oct 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 5, so the watching starts about Sep 19 — about 186 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Kamrar?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Kamrar sees about 186 frost-free days — roughly Apr 16 through Oct 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 7 to Oct 5, about 151 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Kamrar?
The federal record around Kamrar shows 191 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (111), 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 Kamrar?
From about Sep 19 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 19 (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 19. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Kamrar's scale — its 5a band and its 186-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Kamrar'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 Kamrar’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Kamrar's own scale — its own ~186-day season between 28°F freezes, the 545 acres it covers and 191 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Kamrar's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Kamrar's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 16 and Oct 19 and the ~186-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 191 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Kamrar, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Kamrar's boundary and the 545 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 Kamrar'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 Kamrar's 545 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Hamilton County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Hamilton 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 Hamilton County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Kamrar's 545 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Kamrar you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 545 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 Kamrar-wide figureread your own land →
More in Iowa
Wider growing context
What grows across IowaKamrar sits outside our named growing regions, so Iowa as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides