Fontana, Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — 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 Fontana, 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 Fontana 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 Fontana — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Fontana — the short answer
Fontana, Kansas: USDA zone 6b, about 220 days between hard freezes, across 576 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~220
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 576 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 6b is Fontana's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Fontana's 220-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Fontana
Each reading below is measured for Fontana itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFontana runs about 220 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
MeasuredFontana sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Fontana is in
Fontana sits in the Central Irregular Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Fontana's own centroid rather than borrowed from Miami County.
What Grows in Fontana
Every plant below cleared Fontana's own zone 6b and its 220-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Fontana?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 2; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 30 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 5 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Fontana
Survey cells within 31 miles of Fontana checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 418 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Fontana
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Fontana. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BEACHNER GRAIN, INC - FONTANAUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- 19S 23E 15ABB 01Nitrate · 1.4 mi
- 18S 23E 36DA 01Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- 18S 23E 23CBC 01Nitrate · 3.1 mi
- 19S 24E 04BBB 01Nitrate · 4.3 mi
- 18S 24E 33CCC 01Nitrate · 4.3 mi
- 19S 23E 35C 01Nitrate · 5.0 mi
- 19S 23E 30DDC 01Nitrate · 5.2 mi
- 18S 23E 12ABA 01Nitrate · 5.9 mi
- MAGELLAN PIPELINE - PAOLA PUMP STATIONBrownfields · 5.9 mi
- 18S 22E 26C 01Nitrate · 6.1 mi
- PHILLIPS 66 CARRIER - PAOLA PRODUCTS PIPELINE STATIONBrownfields · 6.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Fontana'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 Fontana.
Total Sites
81
within ~10 miles of Fontana
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Fontana
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Fontana
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Fontana, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 30 sites within ~10 miles of Fontana. 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.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Fontana
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 Fontana average
Your land is one point inside Fontana
Everything above resolves to Fontana as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 576 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 Fontana Average
Fontana Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Fontana
- ●One soil character for all of Fontana
- ●Frost dates read at Fontana's scale: Mar 30 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Fontana's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Fontana
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Fontana, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Fontana averages can't show:
We read public map data around Fontana — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Fontana average
How we know this about Fontana
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 Fontana’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 Fontana
When does frost risk typically end in Fontana?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Fontana typically lands around Mar 30, 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 20.
When is the first frost in Fontana?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Fontana typically arrives around Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 22, so the watching starts about Oct 6 — about 220 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Fontana?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Fontana sees about 220 frost-free days — roughly Mar 30 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 20 to Oct 22, about 185 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Fontana?
The federal record around Fontana is a meaningful one — 81 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (30), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Fontana?
From about Oct 6 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 5 (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 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Fontana's scale — its 6b band and its 220-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Fontana'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 Fontana’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Fontana's own scale — its own ~220-day season between 28°F freezes, the 576 acres it covers and 81 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Fontana's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Fontana's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 30 and Nov 5 and the ~220-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 81 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Fontana, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Fontana's boundary and the 576 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~220-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Fontana's own centroid, the Central Irregular PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Fontana checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Fontana's 576 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Miami County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Miami 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 Miami County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Fontana's 576 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Fontana you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 576 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Fontana-wide figureread your own land →
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