Melcher-Dallas, 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.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Melcher-Dallas, 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 Melcher-Dallas 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 Melcher-Dallas — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Melcher-Dallas — the short answer
Melcher-Dallas, Iowa: USDA zone 5b, about 201 days between hard freezes, across 666 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 8
- 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
- ~201
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 666 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 Melcher-Dallas's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Melcher-Dallas's 201-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Melcher-Dallas
Each reading below is measured for Melcher-Dallas itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMelcher-Dallas runs about 201 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
MeasuredMelcher-Dallas 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 Melcher-Dallas is in
Melcher-Dallas sits in the Central Irregular Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Melcher-Dallas's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Marion County is mostly Western Corn Belt Plains. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Melcher-Dallas
Every plant below cleared Melcher-Dallas's own zone 5b and its 201-day season. Each card opens that plant's Iowa profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Melcher-Dallas?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 8 (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. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
What's on the federal record near Melcher-Dallas
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Melcher-Dallas. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 074N21W11DBB 02017 1945Melcher Test 3Nitrate · 450 ft
- 074N21W11DBB 02057 1945Melcher Test 10Nitrate · 850 ft
- 074N21W11CAA 02002 1945Melcher Test 2Nitrate · 950 ft
- 074N21W11CAA 06217 1953Melcher Test 19Nitrate · 1000 ft
- 074N21W11ACDC 23292 1974Dallas 1Nitrate · 1100 ft
- FORMER EAST END GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- VERWERS SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- 074N21W11DBC 01510 1942Melcher 1Nitrate · 1400 ft
- CASEY''S GENERAL STORE 2307Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- SOUTH CENTRAL COOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- MELCHER-DALLAS WATER SUPPLYPFAS · 1700 ft
- MELCHER DALLAS HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 1700 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Melcher-Dallas'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 Melcher-Dallas.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Melcher-Dallas
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Melcher-Dallas
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Melcher-Dallas, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 122 sites within ~10 miles of Melcher-Dallas. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Melcher-Dallas
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 Melcher-Dallas average
Your land is one point inside Melcher-Dallas
Everything above resolves to Melcher-Dallas as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 666 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 Melcher-Dallas Average
Melcher-Dallas Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Melcher-Dallas
- ●One soil character for all of Melcher-Dallas
- ●Frost dates read at Melcher-Dallas's scale: Apr 8 to Oct 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Melcher-Dallas's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Melcher-Dallas
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Melcher-Dallas, Iowa — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Melcher-Dallas averages can't show:
We read public map data around Melcher-Dallas — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Melcher-Dallas average
How we know this about Melcher-Dallas
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 Melcher-Dallas’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 Melcher-Dallas
When does frost risk typically end in Melcher-Dallas?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Melcher-Dallas typically lands around Apr 8, 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 29.
When is the first frost in Melcher-Dallas?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Melcher-Dallas 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 201 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Melcher-Dallas?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Melcher-Dallas sees about 201 frost-free days — roughly Apr 8 through Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 29 to Oct 12, about 166 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Melcher-Dallas?
The federal record around Melcher-Dallas is a meaningful one — 206 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (122), the nearest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Melcher-Dallas?
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 Melcher-Dallas's scale — its 5b band and its 201-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Melcher-Dallas'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 Melcher-Dallas’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Melcher-Dallas's own scale — its own ~201-day season between 28°F freezes, the 666 acres it covers and 206 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Melcher-Dallas's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Melcher-Dallas's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 8 and Oct 26 and the ~201-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 206 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Melcher-Dallas, the closest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Melcher-Dallas's boundary and the 666 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~201-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Melcher-Dallas sits in the Central Irregular Plains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Melcher-Dallas's 666 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Marion County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Marion 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 Marion County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Melcher-Dallas's 666 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Melcher-Dallas you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 666 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate 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 Melcher-Dallas-wide figureread your own land →
More in Iowa
Wider growing context
What grows across IowaMelcher-Dallas sits outside our named growing regions, so Iowa as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides