Pleasantville, 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.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, blueberry, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Pleasantville, 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 Pleasantville 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 Pleasantville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Pleasantville — the short answer
Pleasantville, Iowa: USDA zone 5b, about 205 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~205
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 2K 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 Pleasantville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pleasantville's 205-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Pleasantville
Each reading below is measured for Pleasantville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPleasantville runs about 205 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
MeasuredPleasantville 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 Pleasantville is in
Pleasantville sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Pleasantville's own centroid rather than borrowed from Marion County.
What Grows in Pleasantville
Every plant below cleared Pleasantville's own zone 5b and its 205-day season. Each card opens that plant's Iowa profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Pleasantville?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 7 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 29 — 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 Pleasantville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Pleasantville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PLEASANTVILLE COMMUNITY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- PLEASANTVILLE MIDDLE/HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 550 ft
- CITY OF PLEASANTVILLEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- MCCORMICK ENTERPRISES CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- 076N21W15BCDC 19067 1967Pleasantville 1Nitrate · 1300 ft
- FORMER HAEBERLIN AMOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- PLEASANTVILLE BUILDING SUPPLY INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- MARION CO. RURAL WATER DISTRICTPFAS · 2200 ft
- PLEASANTVILLE FOOD AND FUELUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- CASEY''S GENERAL STORE 2640Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- NORTH END STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- CHEM-TECH (NEOGEN)Toxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pleasantville'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 Pleasantville.
Total Sites
103
within ~10 miles of Pleasantville
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Pleasantville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Pleasantville
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Pleasantville, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 50 sites within ~10 miles of Pleasantville. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Pleasantville
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 Pleasantville average
Your land is one point inside Pleasantville
Everything above resolves to Pleasantville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Pleasantville Average
Pleasantville Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Pleasantville
- ●One soil character for all of Pleasantville
- ●Frost dates read at Pleasantville's scale: Apr 7 to Oct 29
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pleasantville's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Pleasantville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pleasantville, Iowa — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pleasantville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pleasantville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pleasantville average
How we know this about Pleasantville
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 Pleasantville’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 Pleasantville
When does frost risk typically end in Pleasantville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pleasantville typically lands around Apr 7, 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 28.
When is the first frost in Pleasantville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Pleasantville typically arrives around Oct 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 15, so the watching starts about Sep 29 — about 205 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Pleasantville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pleasantville sees about 205 frost-free days — roughly Apr 7 through Oct 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 28 to Oct 15, about 170 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Pleasantville?
The federal record around Pleasantville shows 103 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (50), 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 Pleasantville?
From about Sep 29 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 29 (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 29. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Pleasantville's scale — its 5b band and its 205-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pleasantville'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 Pleasantville’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Pleasantville's own scale — its own ~205-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,566 acres it covers and 103 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pleasantville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pleasantville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 7 and Oct 29 and the ~205-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 103 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Pleasantville, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Pleasantville's boundary and the 1,566 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~205-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Pleasantville'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 Pleasantville's 1,566 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 Pleasantville's 1,566 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Pleasantville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,566 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 Pleasantville-wide figureread your own land →
More in Iowa
Wider growing context
What grows across IowaPleasantville sits outside our named growing regions, so Iowa as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides