Minden, Iowa, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
These conditions suit cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Minden, 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 Minden 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 Minden — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Minden — the short answer
Minden, Iowa: USDA zone 5b, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 363 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 9
- 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
- ~200
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 363 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 Minden's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Minden's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Minden
Each reading below is measured for Minden itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMinden runs about 200 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
MeasuredMinden 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 Minden is in
Minden sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Minden's own centroid rather than borrowed from Pottawattamie County.
What Grows in Minden
Every plant below cleared Minden's own zone 5b and its 200-day season. Each card opens that plant's Iowa profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Minden?
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 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 9 (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. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
What's on the federal record near Minden
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Minden. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 077N41W15ACDD 1940Minden 2Nitrate · 600 ft
- BAKER PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- TRAFTON ENTERPRISESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- AT&T COMMUNICATIONSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- OLOFSON & SONS RESTORATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- JENSEN SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- WELLMAN CONSTRUCTIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- FORMER KOPPER KETTLEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE 3204Underground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- IOWA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATIONBrownfields · 3.2 mi
- IOWA D O TUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- TRI-CENTER HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 3.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Minden'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 Minden.
Total Sites
57
within ~10 miles of Minden
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Minden
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Minden
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Minden, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 39 sites within ~10 miles of Minden. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Minden
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 Minden average
Your land is one point inside Minden
Everything above resolves to Minden as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 363 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 Minden Average
Minden Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Minden
- ●One soil character for all of Minden
- ●Frost dates read at Minden's scale: Apr 9 to Oct 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Minden's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Minden
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Minden, Iowa — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Minden averages can't show:
We read public map data around Minden — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Minden average
How we know this about Minden
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 Minden’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 Minden
When does frost risk typically end in Minden?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Minden typically lands around Apr 9, 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 30.
When is the first frost in Minden?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Minden 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 200 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Minden?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Minden sees about 200 frost-free days — roughly Apr 9 through Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 30 to Oct 12, about 165 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Minden?
The federal record around Minden shows 57 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (39), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.1 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 Minden?
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 Minden's scale — its 5b band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Minden'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 Minden’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Minden's own scale — its own ~200-day season between 28°F freezes, the 363 acres it covers and 57 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Minden's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Minden's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 9 and Oct 26 and the ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 57 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Minden, the closest Nitrate record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Minden's boundary and the 363 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~200-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Minden'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 Minden's 363 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Pottawattamie County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Pottawattamie 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 Pottawattamie County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Minden's 363 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Minden you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 363 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.1 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 Minden-wide figureread your own land →
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