Cawker City, Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Cawker City, 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 Cawker City 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 Cawker City — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Cawker City — the short answer
Cawker City, Kansas: USDA zone 6a, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 644 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~200
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 644 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 Cawker City's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cawker City's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cawker City
Each reading below is measured for Cawker City itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCawker City 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
MeasuredCawker City 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 Cawker City is in
Cawker City sits in the Central Great Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Cawker City's own centroid rather than borrowed from Mitchell County.
What Grows in Cawker City
Every plant below cleared Cawker City's own zone 6a and its 200-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Cawker City?
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 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 27 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Cawker City
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cawker City. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CENTRAL VALLEY AG-STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 400 ft
- SUNFLOWER MANUFACTURING-CAWKERBrownfields · 400 ft
- WINKEL BODY SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 400 ft
- AGCO CORPBrownfields · 500 ft
- SUNFLOWER MFG CO INCToxics Release Inventory · 500 ft
- BOBS INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- FRASIER'S SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- STATE BANK OF DOWNS - PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- 06S 10W 27CDD 01Nitrate · 1.1 mi
- 06S 10W 16DDC 01Nitrate · 1.1 mi
- 06S 10W 20AA 01Nitrate · 1.4 mi
- 07S 10W 03DDA 01Nitrate · 3.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cawker City'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 Cawker City.
Total Sites
93
within ~10 miles of Cawker City
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cawker City
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cawker City
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cawker City, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 68 sites within ~10 miles of Cawker City. 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.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Cawker City
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 Cawker City average
Your land is one point inside Cawker City
Everything above resolves to Cawker City as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 644 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 Cawker City Average
Cawker City Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Cawker City
- ●One soil character for all of Cawker City
- ●Frost dates read at Cawker City's scale: Apr 10 to Oct 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cawker City's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cawker City
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cawker City, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cawker City averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cawker City — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cawker City average
How we know this about Cawker City
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 Cawker City’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 Cawker City
When does frost risk typically end in Cawker City?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cawker City typically lands around Apr 10, 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 1.
When is the first frost in Cawker City?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cawker City typically arrives around Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 13, so the watching starts about Sep 27 — about 200 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Cawker City?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cawker City sees about 200 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Oct 13, about 165 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cawker City?
The federal record around Cawker City shows 93 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (68), 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 Cawker City?
From about Sep 27 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 27 (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 27. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Cawker City's scale — its 6a band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cawker City'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 Cawker City’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Cawker City's own scale — its own ~200-day season between 28°F freezes, the 644 acres it covers and 93 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cawker City's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cawker City's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 10 and Oct 27 and the ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 93 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cawker City, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cawker City's boundary and the 644 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~200-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Cawker City's own centroid, the Central Great PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Cawker City's 644 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Mitchell County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Mitchell 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 Mitchell County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Cawker City's 644 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cawker City you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 644 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 Cawker City-wide figureread your own land →
More in Kansas
Wider growing context
What grows across KansasCawker City sits outside our named growing regions, so Kansas as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides