Truesdale, Iowa, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — 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 Truesdale, 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 Truesdale 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 Truesdale — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Truesdale — the short answer
Truesdale, Iowa: USDA zone 5a, about 183 days between hard freezes, across 93 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~183
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 93 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 5a is Truesdale's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Truesdale's 183-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Truesdale
Each reading below is measured for Truesdale itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredTruesdale runs about 183 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredTruesdale sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a.
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 Truesdale is in
Truesdale sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Truesdale's own centroid rather than borrowed from Buena Vista County.
What Grows in Truesdale
Every plant below cleared Truesdale's own zone 5a and its 183-day season. Each card opens that plant's Iowa profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Truesdale?
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 22; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 19 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 19 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
What's on the federal record near Truesdale
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Truesdale. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FIRST COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- 091N37W02CBA 08104 1955Truesdale 1Nitrate · 1800 ft
- AGRISCHOOLS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- 091N37W05DDC 08226 1957Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- BARGLOFFSUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- HULTGREN - GERLACH INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- NWB/ROCUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- RASMUSSEN FORD-MERCURYUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- NELSONS PREMIX & VET SUPPLYUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.4 mi
- MURPHY OIL #6923Underground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
- VETTER EQUIPMENT COMPANYBrownfields · 4.7 mi
- HULTGREN'S-GERLACHBrownfields · 4.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Truesdale'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 Truesdale.
Total Sites
207
within ~10 miles of Truesdale
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
15 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Truesdale
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Truesdale
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Truesdale, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Truesdale — Toxics Release Inventory (15 sites) and Nitrate (54 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Truesdale
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 Truesdale average
Your land is one point inside Truesdale
Everything above resolves to Truesdale as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 93 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 Truesdale Average
Truesdale Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Truesdale
- ●One soil character for all of Truesdale
- ●Frost dates read at Truesdale's scale: Apr 19 to Oct 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Truesdale's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Truesdale
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Truesdale, Iowa — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Truesdale averages can't show:
We read public map data around Truesdale — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Truesdale average
How we know this about Truesdale
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 Truesdale’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 Truesdale
When does frost risk typically end in Truesdale?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Truesdale typically lands around Apr 19, 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 May 10.
When is the first frost in Truesdale?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Truesdale typically arrives around Oct 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 5, so the watching starts about Sep 19 — about 183 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Truesdale?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Truesdale sees about 183 frost-free days — roughly Apr 19 through Oct 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 10 to Oct 5, about 148 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Truesdale?
The federal record around Truesdale is a meaningful one — 207 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (104), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Truesdale?
From about Sep 19 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 19 (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 19. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Truesdale's scale — its 5a band and its 183-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Truesdale'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 Truesdale’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Truesdale's own scale — its own ~183-day season between 28°F freezes, the 93 acres it covers and 207 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Truesdale's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Truesdale's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 19 and Oct 19 and the ~183-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 207 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Truesdale, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Truesdale's boundary and the 93 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~183-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Truesdale'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 Truesdale's 93 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Buena Vista County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Buena Vista 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 Buena Vista County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Truesdale's 93 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Truesdale you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 93 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 Truesdale-wide figureread your own land →
More in Iowa
Wider growing context
What grows across IowaTruesdale sits outside our named growing regions, so Iowa as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides