Kansas spans USDA hardiness zones 5b-7a, with a growing season of about 208 frost-free days — long enough to run two plantings of many vegetables and still ripen the heat-lovers.
Taken together, 16-42 inches of annual rainfall, a median of roughly 3,821 growing-degree days (base 50°F), and about 2,500 winter chill hours for tree fruit draw the line between what thrives here and what merely survives. The dominant soils run to prairie loam, silt loam, clay, and loess, and their drainage is one of the strongest predictors of which crops take hold and which falter. Kansas is not one growing region but several — from High Plains, Flint Hills, and Southeast Kansas / Cherokee Lowlands (Ozark Border) — each with its own zone band and frost timing. Reliable performers under these conditions include tomato, sunflower, peach, and blackberry; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded inUSDA PHZM•NOAA Climate Normals•USDA NRCS SSURGO•GDD (PRISM 1991-2020 normals)•Chill hours (PRISM 1991-2020 normals)•USDA hardiness sub-region map•EPA FRS•USDA PLANTS•Growable Ground suitability scoring
Kansas spans zones 5b-7a, but your yard sits in exactly one — and slope, tree cover, and low spots nudge it further. 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 Kansas — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Distinct growing regions within Kansas — each has its own zones, soils, and signature crops.
Kansas: USDA zones 5b-7a, 177–231 frost-free days depending on the county, 105 counties.
The middle half of this state’s counties. Tender transplants usually wait 2–3 weeks past the last hard freeze. The shortest-season figure is Kansas's own county record — Greeley County's measured 28°F normal, not a modeled floor.
Kansas does not have one growing season. Across all 724 of its towns that carry their own 30-year record, the shortest measured season is Horace's at 176 days and the longest is Pittsburg's at 232 — a 56-day spread inside one state.
Neither end is a lone reading — another 25 towns measure within 10 days of Horace and 169 sit within 10 days of Pittsburg. These are real pockets, so the number to plant against is your own town's, not the state average.
NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS (1991–2020), 30-year daily minimum record
Zone 5b-7a is Kansas's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Kansas's 208-day season, see what your own ground reads.
One answer for Kansas averages 105 counties whose growing seasons are 54 days apart — from 177 frost-free days in Greeley County to 231 in Crawford County. That is the same state, measured the same way, in the same years. Which end of it your county sits nearer decides what finishes before the first hard freeze.
The middle half of 105 counties runs 197–216 days, with a median of 208 days — a 54-day span end to end.
Measured across 105 counties, each carrying its own 28°F normal. NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020, county 28°F killing freeze. A county with no record of its own is absent from the range rather than counted as zero — nothing here is interpolated to the state. Your own site sits somewhere inside this range; a parcel report resolves where.
The middle half of Kansas runs 197–216 frost-free days, and 52 of its 105 counties sit outside that — 26 on the short side, 26 on the long. A statewide planting date describes the middle well and the ends poorly, which is worth knowing before you follow one.
Under 197 frost-free days
26 counties
3 of 26 shown
The end of the state that sets the planting calendar — start seed indoors here and the season stretches to meet the crop.
197–216 frost-free days
53 counties
0 of 53 shown
The middle half of the state, and the part a single statewide date describes well.
Over 216 frost-free days
26 counties
3 of 26 shown
Long enough for a second succession of a quick crop after the first comes out.
Each county is placed by its own 28°F frost-free normal (NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020, county 28°F killing freeze), the same figure its own guide page publishes. Elevation, slope and cold-air drainage move a yard within its county as well — which is the part only your address resolves.
The soil types that dominate Kansas — how each drains decides more about crop success than almost anything else. Tap any soil to learn what it is and how to work with it. Each photo is a representative profile of that soil type; the named series is where it was documented, which is often another state.
Drainage
Good. The crumb structure that prairie roots built lets water in and holds it like a sponge, releasing it steadily through the season.
What thrives
This is some of the most productive crop ground on Earth — corn, beans, squash, brassicas, and nearly any vegetable you plant. Prairie natives like coneflower and big bluestem are, unsurprisingly, right at home.
Drainage
Moderate. Silt holds water well and releases it steadily, though the fine particles can crust after hard rain and compact under traffic.
What thrives
The full vegetable garden does well here, and small grains, corn, and leafy greens are classic silt-loam crops. Its steady moisture suits shallow-rooted plants that dislike drought stress.
Drainage
Slow. Water enters clay reluctantly and leaves it the same way, so wet springs keep it cold and unworkable longer than lighter soils.
What thrives
Once established, heavy feeders prosper — brassicas, beans, corn, and many fruit trees ride clay’s nutrient supply and summer moisture reserve. Daylilies, roses, and prairie perennials handle it without complaint.
Drainage
Good — it absorbs rain readily and holds it in reach of roots — but it erodes faster than any other soil when left bare on a slope.
What thrives
Nearly everything: corn, small grains, and the full vegetable garden thrive in loess country, which is exactly why so much of it is farmed.
Soil data: USDA NRCS SSURGO · Soil types explained
Plants well-suited to Kansas's climate, soils, and growing season — each links to its full growing profile.
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Across Kansas, cool-season planting typically opens about four weeks before the local last hard freeze — county medians put that freeze near Apr 5, with the middle half of counties between Apr 1 and Apr 12 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals). Tender transplants wait two to three weeks past it, and fall planting counts back from first freezes mostly between Oct 25 and Nov 3 — 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.
The plants Kansas put its name on — cultural emblems, not growing recommendations.
Helianthus annuus
Designated 1903. In our plant library — see its full growing profile.
Eastern cottonwood
Populus deltoides
Designated 1937.
Sandhill plum
Designated 2022.
Plants the USDA PLANTS Database documents as native and present in Kansas — a real per-state range, not just a zone match. Ordered by how closely each plant’s published hardiness range matches Kansas’s zones 5b-7a, so this is a shortlist by climate fit, not a ranking of which plants matter most here. Presence is statewide, so a plant may still be uncommon in your specific county; your state’s Cooperative Extension or a native-plant society is the local authority.
US-native plants whose hardiness range overlaps Kansas’s USDA zones 5b-7a but which USDA PLANTS doesn’t map to a single state range here. Zone overlap is a starting filter, not a range map.
What an experienced grower plans around here — each one has a move.
Low rainfall in western KS requires irrigation
Out west, drip lines and heavy mulch are the growing season — design the water before the beds.
Extreme wind and hail during severe storm season
Stage row cover for hail season and give young plants a windbreak — quick shelter saves seasons.
Hot dry summers with 100F+ days
Lean on the spring and fall windows, shade the summer survivors, and water deep and early in the day.
For cultivar selection, pest pressure, and planting-time guidance specific to Kansas, the K-State Research and Extension is the authoritative local source.
Safe to Grow Here?What the federal record shows across Kansas — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Kansas — 33,298 documented sites across 8 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 146 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Kansas carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Severity Distribution
across Kansas
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Kansas, two things run higher than the national average across Kansas — Nitrate (15,878 sites) and CAFO (485 sites). 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.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
Everything above resolves to Kansas as a whole — a state whose own counties record seasons 54 days apart, and hardiness across zones 5b-7a. Your parcel sits at one point in that range, not in the middle of it. 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 state 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 statewide average.
State averages sketch the shape. Your soil, sun exposure, drainage, and microclimate decide what actually takes. Pull a site-specific report for your exact parcel.
Enter your address. We read your soil, sun, drainage, and frost dates, then score 1,086 plants against the real conditions on your land.
Three things about your lot that Kansas averages can't show:
We read public map data around Kansas — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Kansas average
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read per county and aggregated to the state band; the growing season from NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS 1991–2020 28°F normals, read at each county’s own record; rainfall from NOAA Climate Normals; soils from USDA NRCS SSURGO; boundaries from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination record from the federal sources named in that beat above. Where a county carries no record of its own, it is absent from the figure rather than filled in.
Kansas spans USDA hardiness zones 5b-7a — which is to say winter's coldest night runs from about −15°F to 5°F depending where in Kansas you are, averaged over 1991–2020 (USDA PHZM 2023).
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Across Kansas, cool-season planting typically opens about four weeks before the local last hard freeze — county medians put that freeze near Apr 5, with the middle half of counties between Apr 1 and Apr 12 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals). Tender transplants wait two to three weeks past it, and fall planting counts back from first freezes mostly between Oct 25 and Nov 3 — 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.
Across Kansas, the middle half of counties see their last hard freeze (28°F) between about Apr 1 and Apr 12, with a county median near Apr 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals). 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 26.
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, growing seasons across Kansas's counties mostly run about 197 to 216 days, with a county median near 208 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals). Tender crops get a somewhat shorter practical window, since lighter frosts reach a few weeks past the hard-freeze dates on both ends.
Kansas's zones 5b-7a support a wide range — strong performers include Tomato, Sunflower, Peach, Blackberry, and Buffalo Grass. What actually takes on any one site comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage, and we score each plant against the real conditions at your address.
Officially, Kansas spans USDA zones 5b-7a (USDA PHZM 2023) — but a zone is a 30-year average of winter's coldest night across an area, and it can't see any one yard. A south-facing slope, a tree line, or a low frost pocket can shift a single site by half a zone either way, which is why neighboring gardeners often quote different numbers. We read the conditions at your exact address — soil, sun, slope, and frost — and score 1,086 plants against what's actually there.
The federal record across Kansas runs heavier than most — 33,298 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (15,878) — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
Start with three facts. Kansas spans USDA zones 5b-7a, which sets what survives winter; last hard freezes range from about Apr 1 to Apr 12 across its counties (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and 33,298 documented sites sit on the federal record here, so a soil test before food beds is the smart first step. From there, matching plants to your actual soil and sun is the fun part.
Everything above is measured at Kansas's scale — its 5b-7a band and its 208-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Kansas's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
6 of the readings below were taken at Kansas's own scale — the full zone 5b-7a span inside its borders, the 4 soil types that dominate its ground and 33,298 documented sites on its federal record; anything it cannot resolve at this scale is named below.
Measured here
What this page can’t tell you
Explore growing conditions by county — each has its own zone range and land area.
Explore growing conditions by city or town in Kansas.
