Blue Rapids, Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Blue Rapids, 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 Blue Rapids 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 Blue Rapids — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Blue Rapids — the short answer
Blue Rapids, Kansas: USDA zone 6a, about 204 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 4
- 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
- ~204
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 1K 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 6a is Blue Rapids's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Blue Rapids's 204-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Blue Rapids
Each reading below is measured for Blue Rapids itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBlue Rapids runs about 204 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
MeasuredBlue Rapids sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Blue Rapids is in
Blue Rapids sits in the Flint Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Blue Rapids's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Marshall County is mostly Western Corn Belt Plains. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Blue Rapids
Every plant below cleared Blue Rapids's own zone 6a and its 204-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Blue Rapids?
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 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 4 (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. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
What's on the federal record near Blue Rapids
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Blue Rapids. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BIGHAM SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- TITAN TRAILER MANUFACTURING INC PLANT 2Toxics Release Inventory · 800 ft
- CASEY'S GENERAL STORES - #1150Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- ROUTE 77 CORNER STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- 04S 07E 20DCC 01Nitrate · 2300 ft
- GUNNS SERVICE, LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- 04S 07E 20CD 01Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- 04S 07E 21CD 01Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- NUSTAR PIPELINE OPERATING PARTNERSHIP LP BLUE RAPIDS STATIONBrownfields · 1.8 mi
- GP INDUSTRIAL PLASTERSBrownfields · 2.0 mi
- GP INDUSTRIAL PLASTERSToxics Release Inventory · 2.0 mi
- VALLEY HEIGHTS JR/SR HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 3.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Blue Rapids'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 Blue Rapids.
Total Sites
48
within ~10 miles of Blue Rapids
Risk Level
Low
Highest-severity
6 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Blue Rapids
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Blue Rapids
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Blue Rapids, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Blue Rapids — Nitrate (28 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (6 sites). 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.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Blue Rapids
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 Blue Rapids average
Your land is one point inside Blue Rapids
Everything above resolves to Blue Rapids as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Blue Rapids Average
Blue Rapids Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Blue Rapids
- ●One soil character for all of Blue Rapids
- ●Frost dates read at Blue Rapids's scale: Apr 4 to Oct 25
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Blue Rapids's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Blue Rapids
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Blue Rapids, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Blue Rapids averages can't show:
We read public map data around Blue Rapids — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Blue Rapids average
How we know this about Blue Rapids
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 Blue Rapids’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 Blue Rapids
When does frost risk typically end in Blue Rapids?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Blue Rapids typically lands around Apr 4, 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 25.
When is the first frost in Blue Rapids?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Blue Rapids 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 204 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Blue Rapids?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Blue Rapids sees about 204 frost-free days — roughly Apr 4 through Oct 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 25 to Oct 11, about 169 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Blue Rapids?
The federal record around Blue Rapids is light — 48 documented sites across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Nitrate entries (28), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out — and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. Growing food here starts from a strong position; a soil test before new food beds settles any site-specific question.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Blue Rapids?
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 Blue Rapids's scale — its 6a band and its 204-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Blue Rapids'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 Blue Rapids’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Blue Rapids's own scale — its own ~204-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,270 acres it covers and 48 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Blue Rapids's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Blue Rapids's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 4 and Oct 25 and the ~204-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 48 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Blue Rapids, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Blue Rapids's boundary and the 1,270 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~204-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Blue Rapids sits in the Flint Hills — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Blue Rapids's 1,270 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Marshall County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Marshall 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 Marshall County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Blue Rapids's 1,270 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Blue Rapids you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,270 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles 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 Blue Rapids-wide figureread your own land →
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