Dearing, Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Dearing, 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 Dearing 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 Dearing — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Dearing — the short answer
Dearing, Kansas: USDA zone 7a, about 226 days between hard freezes, across 969 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~226
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 969 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 Dearing's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Dearing's 226-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Dearing
Each reading below is measured for Dearing itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDearing runs about 226 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
MeasuredDearing 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 Dearing is in
Dearing sits in the Central Irregular Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Dearing's own centroid rather than borrowed from Montgomery County.
What Grows in Dearing
Every plant below cleared Dearing's own zone 7a and its 226-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Dearing?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 27; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 27 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 8 — 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 Dearing
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Dearing. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 34S 16E 31BA 01Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- 34S 16E 30BC 01Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- OM, LLC DBA C & K STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- 34S 15E 25DA 01Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- 35S 16E 06BA 01Nitrate · 1.4 mi
- MILLER BROS OIL COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- 35S 15E 01ADD 01Nitrate · 1.8 mi
- 34S 15E 26DA 01Nitrate · 2.0 mi
- COFFEYVILLE ARMORY ANNEXUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- 34S 16E 16DC 01Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- GREGS AUTO SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- GREG S AUTO SERVICEBrownfields · 2.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Dearing'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 Dearing.
Total Sites
196
within ~10 miles of Dearing
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Dearing
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Dearing
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Dearing, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Dearing — Toxics Release Inventory (14 sites) and Nitrate (58 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
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 Dearing
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 Dearing average
Your land is one point inside Dearing
Everything above resolves to Dearing as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 969 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 Dearing Average
Dearing Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Dearing
- ●One soil character for all of Dearing
- ●Frost dates read at Dearing's scale: Mar 27 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Dearing's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Dearing
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Dearing, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Dearing averages can't show:
We read public map data around Dearing — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Dearing average
How we know this about Dearing
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 Dearing’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 Dearing
When does frost risk typically end in Dearing?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Dearing typically lands around Mar 27, 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 17.
When is the first frost in Dearing?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Dearing typically arrives around Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 25, so the watching starts about Oct 9 — about 226 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Dearing?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Dearing sees about 226 frost-free days — roughly Mar 27 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 17 to Oct 25, about 191 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Dearing?
The federal record around Dearing is a meaningful one — 196 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (71), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.6 miles 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 Dearing?
From about Oct 9 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 8 (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 8. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Dearing's scale — its 7a band and its 226-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Dearing'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 Dearing’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Dearing's own scale — its own ~226-day season between 28°F freezes, the 969 acres it covers and 196 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Dearing's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Dearing's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 27 and Nov 8 and the ~226-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 196 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Dearing, the closest Nitrate record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Dearing's boundary and the 969 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~226-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Dearing's own centroid, the Central Irregular PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Dearing's 969 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Montgomery County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Montgomery 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 Montgomery County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Dearing's 969 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Dearing you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 969 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.6 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 Dearing-wide figureread your own land →