Pleasant Plain, Iowa, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Pleasant Plain, 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 Pleasant Plain 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 Pleasant Plain — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Pleasant Plain — the short answer
Pleasant Plain, Iowa: USDA zone 5b, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 648 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
- 648 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 Pleasant Plain's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pleasant Plain's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Pleasant Plain
Each reading below is measured for Pleasant Plain itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPleasant Plain 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
MeasuredPleasant Plain 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 Pleasant Plain is in
Pleasant Plain sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Pleasant Plain's own centroid rather than borrowed from Jefferson County.
What Grows in Pleasant Plain
Every plant below cleared Pleasant Plain'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 Pleasant Plain?
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. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
What's on the federal record near Pleasant Plain
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Pleasant Plain. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HARRY ROBERTSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- 073N09W11BA 08801 1956Pleasant Plain SchoolNitrate · 1600 ft
- 073N09W11CBA 06929 1954Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- BJ''S STOP OFFUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- 073N09W04CBBB 10016 1956Nitrate · 2.4 mi
- DONS TIRE & SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- COBB OIL CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- 074N08W31ABBB 00012 1923Brighton 1Nitrate · 2.8 mi
- BRIGHTON AMOCO FOOD SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- GLEN MULLIKIN JRUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- POPEJOYS DXUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- LAKE DARLINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pleasant Plain'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 Pleasant Plain.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Pleasant Plain
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Pleasant Plain
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Pleasant Plain, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 46 sites within ~10 miles of Pleasant Plain. 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 Pleasant Plain
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 Pleasant Plain average
Your land is one point inside Pleasant Plain
Everything above resolves to Pleasant Plain as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 648 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 Pleasant Plain Average
Pleasant Plain Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Pleasant Plain
- ●One soil character for all of Pleasant Plain
- ●Frost dates read at Pleasant Plain's scale: Apr 9 to Oct 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pleasant Plain's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Pleasant Plain
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pleasant Plain, Iowa — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pleasant Plain averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pleasant Plain — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pleasant Plain average
How we know this about Pleasant Plain
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 Pleasant Plain’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 Pleasant Plain
When does frost risk typically end in Pleasant Plain?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pleasant Plain 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 Pleasant Plain?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Pleasant Plain 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 Pleasant Plain?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pleasant Plain 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 Pleasant Plain?
The federal record around Pleasant Plain shows 74 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (46), 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 Pleasant Plain?
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 Pleasant Plain's scale — its 5b band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pleasant Plain'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 Pleasant Plain’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Pleasant Plain's own scale — its own ~200-day season between 28°F freezes, the 648 acres it covers and 74 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pleasant Plain's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pleasant Plain's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 9 and Oct 26 and the ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 74 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Pleasant Plain, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Pleasant Plain's boundary and the 648 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 Pleasant Plain'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 Pleasant Plain's 648 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Jefferson County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Jefferson 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 Jefferson County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Pleasant Plain's 648 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Pleasant Plain you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 648 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 Pleasant Plain-wide figureread your own land →