Stockton, Iowa, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
On paper, cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Stockton, 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 Stockton 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 Stockton — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Stockton — the short answer
Stockton, Iowa: USDA zone 5b, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 70 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 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~200
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 70 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 Stockton's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Stockton's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Stockton
Each reading below is measured for Stockton itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredStockton 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
MeasuredStockton 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 Stockton is in
Stockton sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Stockton's own centroid rather than borrowed from Muscatine County.
What Grows in Stockton
Every plant below cleared Stockton'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 Stockton?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. 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 25 — 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 Stockton
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Stockton. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- QUALITY FOUNDRY COUnderground Storage Tanks · 200 ft
- FARMERS COOP ELEVATOR COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- ITC MIDWEST - FULTONBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- FOY''S SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- ROYS BODY SHOPBrownfields · 2.4 mi
- Not KnownUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- DURANT FOUNDRYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- CASEY''S GENERAL STORE #2504Underground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- ANN STONEHOUSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- KAHLS BODY SHOPBrownfields · 2.6 mi
- RUSSELLOY FOUNDRY INCBrownfields · 2.7 mi
- STOCKTON TRAVEL CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Stockton'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 Stockton.
Total Sites
142
within ~10 miles of Stockton
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
16 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Stockton
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Stockton
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Stockton, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Stockton — Toxics Release Inventory (16 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (88 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Stockton
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 Stockton average
Your land is one point inside Stockton
Everything above resolves to Stockton as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 70 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 Stockton Average
Stockton Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Stockton
- ●One soil character for all of Stockton
- ●Frost dates read at Stockton's scale: Apr 8 to Oct 25
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Stockton's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Stockton
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Stockton, Iowa — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Stockton averages can't show:
We read public map data around Stockton — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Stockton average
How we know this about Stockton
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 Stockton’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 Stockton
When does frost risk typically end in Stockton?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Stockton 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 Stockton?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Stockton typically arrives around Oct 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 11, so the watching starts about Sep 25 — about 200 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Stockton?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Stockton sees about 200 frost-free days — roughly Apr 8 through Oct 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 29 to Oct 11, about 165 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Stockton?
The federal record around Stockton shows 142 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (88), 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 Stockton?
From about Sep 25 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 25 (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 25. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Stockton's scale — its 5b band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Stockton'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 Stockton’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Stockton's own scale — its own ~200-day season between 28°F freezes, the 70 acres it covers and 142 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Stockton's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Stockton's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 8 and Oct 25 and the ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 142 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Stockton, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Stockton's boundary and the 70 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 Stockton'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 Stockton's 70 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Muscatine County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Muscatine 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 Muscatine County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Stockton's 70 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Stockton you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 70 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 Stockton-wide figureread your own land →
More in Iowa
Wider growing context
What grows across IowaStockton sits outside our named growing regions, so Iowa as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides