Baxter Springs, Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Baxter Springs, 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 Baxter Springs 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 Baxter Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Baxter Springs — the short answer
Baxter Springs, Kansas: USDA zone 7a, about 229 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~229
- 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 7a is Baxter Springs's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Baxter Springs's 229-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Baxter Springs
Each reading below is measured for Baxter Springs itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBaxter Springs runs about 229 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
MeasuredBaxter Springs sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Baxter Springs is in
Baxter Springs sits in the Central Irregular Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Baxter Springs's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cherokee County.
What Grows in Baxter Springs
Every plant below cleared Baxter Springs's own zone 7a and its 229-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Baxter Springs?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 10 — 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 Baxter Springs
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Baxter Springs. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BAXTER SPRINGS, CITY OFUnderground Storage Tanks · 350 ft
- MRS ETTALUE QUINNUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- BX EXPRESSUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- USD #508Underground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- KEN'S WHOLESALE COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- STEVE'S DELI MART-BAXTER STATEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- PUMP'N PETE'S #45Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- ALLEN, WALTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- MACK WESTON AUTOMOTIVEBrownfields · 2100 ft
- COBLE OIL COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- BAXTER SPRINGS QUICK STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- BAXTER MEMORIAL HOSPITALUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Baxter Springs'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 Baxter Springs.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Baxter Springs
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Baxter Springs
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Baxter Springs, Mining runs higher than the national average — 345 sites within ~10 miles of Baxter Springs. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Baxter Springs
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 Baxter Springs average
Your land is one point inside Baxter Springs
Everything above resolves to Baxter Springs 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 Baxter Springs Average
Baxter Springs Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Baxter Springs
- ●One soil character for all of Baxter Springs
- ●Frost dates read at Baxter Springs's scale: Mar 26 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Baxter Springs's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Baxter Springs
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Baxter Springs, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Baxter Springs averages can't show:
We read public map data around Baxter Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Baxter Springs average
How we know this about Baxter Springs
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 Baxter Springs’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 Baxter Springs
When does frost risk typically end in Baxter Springs?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Baxter Springs typically lands around Mar 26, 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 16.
When is the first frost in Baxter Springs?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Baxter Springs typically arrives around Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 27, so the watching starts about Oct 11 — about 229 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Baxter Springs?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Baxter Springs sees about 229 frost-free days — roughly Mar 26 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 16 to Oct 27, about 194 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Baxter Springs?
The federal record around Baxter Springs runs heavier than most — 604 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (345), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out — 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Baxter Springs?
From about Oct 11 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 Nov 10 (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 Nov 10. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Baxter Springs's scale — its 7a band and its 229-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Baxter Springs'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 Baxter Springs’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Baxter Springs's own scale — its own ~229-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,015 acres it covers and 604 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Baxter Springs's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Baxter Springs's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 26 and Nov 10 and the ~229-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 604 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Baxter Springs, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Baxter Springs's boundary and the 2,015 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~229-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Baxter Springs's own centroid, the Central Irregular PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Baxter Springs's 2,015 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cherokee County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cherokee County
- The growing challenges every Kansas grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Kansas
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Cherokee County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Baxter Springs's 2,015 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Baxter Springs you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,015 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 Baxter Springs-wide figureread your own land →