Lime Springs, Iowa, sits in USDA hardiness zone 4b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
These conditions suit cabbage, cranberry, turkish rocket, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Lime Springs, 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 Lime Springs 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 Lime Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Lime Springs — the short answer
Lime Springs, Iowa: USDA zone 4b, about 170 days between hard freezes, across 650 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 4b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~170
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 650 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 4b is Lime Springs's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lime Springs's 170-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lime Springs
Each reading below is measured for Lime Springs itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLime Springs runs about 170 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
MeasuredLime Springs sits in USDA hardiness zone 4b.
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 Lime Springs is in
Lime Springs sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Lime Springs's own centroid rather than borrowed from Howard County.
What Grows in Lime Springs
Every plant below cleared Lime Springs's own zone 4b and its 170-day season. Each card opens that plant's Iowa profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lime Springs?
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 27; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 24 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 11 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
What's on the federal record near Lime Springs
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lime Springs. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DELBERT NORMANUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- HOWARD-WINNESHIEK SCHOOLSUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- SECONDARY ROADS LIME SPRINGS MAINT SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- FORMER JIMS DXUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- DAVIS CORNERS STORE & GRILLUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- JIM SCOTTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- TANK & TUMMYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- WINNESHIEK COOPERATIVEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- A & K FEED & GRAIN COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- 100N12W29DBDC 01836 1944Lime Springs 1Nitrate · 1000 ft
- CROELL REDI-MIX INC. (LIMESPRGS)Toxics Release Inventory · 1100 ft
- 100N12W29DBD 1968Lime Springs 2Nitrate · 1200 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lime Springs'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 Lime Springs.
Total Sites
83
within ~10 miles of Lime Springs
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lime Springs
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lime Springs
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lime Springs, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 22 sites within ~10 miles of Lime Springs. 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 Lime Springs
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 Lime Springs average
Your land is one point inside Lime Springs
Everything above resolves to Lime Springs as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 650 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 Lime Springs Average
Lime Springs Average
- ●USDA Zones 4b, averaged across Lime Springs
- ●One soil character for all of Lime Springs
- ●Frost dates read at Lime Springs's scale: Apr 24 to Oct 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lime Springs's 4b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lime Springs
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lime Springs, Iowa — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lime Springs averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lime Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lime Springs average
How we know this about Lime Springs
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 Lime Springs’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 Lime Springs
When does frost risk typically end in Lime Springs?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lime Springs typically lands around Apr 24, 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 15.
When is the first frost in Lime Springs?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lime Springs typically arrives around Oct 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Sep 27, so the watching starts about Sep 11 — about 170 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lime Springs?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lime Springs sees about 170 frost-free days — roughly Apr 24 through Oct 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 15 to Sep 27, about 135 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lime Springs?
The federal record around Lime Springs shows 83 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (49), 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 Lime Springs?
From about Sep 11 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 11 (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 11. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Lime Springs's scale — its 4b band and its 170-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lime Springs'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 Lime Springs’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Lime Springs's own scale — its own ~170-day season between 28°F freezes, the 650 acres it covers and 83 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lime Springs's own USDA hardiness band, zones 4bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lime Springs's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 24 and Oct 11 and the ~170-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 83 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lime Springs, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lime Springs's boundary and the 650 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 4b and a ~170-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Lime Springs'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 Lime Springs's 650 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Howard County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Howard 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 Howard County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Lime Springs's 650 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lime Springs you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 650 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 Lime Springs-wide figureread your own land →
More in Iowa
Wider growing context
What grows across IowaLime Springs sits outside our named growing regions, so Iowa as a whole is its closest context here.