Long Island, Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Long Island, 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 Long Island 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 Long Island — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Long Island — the short answer
Long Island, Kansas: USDA zone 6a, about 189 days between hard freezes, across 263 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~189
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 263 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 Long Island's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Long Island's 189-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Long Island
Each reading below is measured for Long Island itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLong Island runs about 189 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredLong Island 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 Long Island is in
Long Island sits in the Central Great Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Long Island's own centroid rather than borrowed from Phillips County.
What Grows in Long Island
Every plant below cleared Long Island's own zone 6a and its 189-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Long Island?
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 19; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 16 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 22 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Late in the year the fall bench takes over — quick greens, radishes, and garlic that repays you next summer.
What's on the federal record near Long Island
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Long Island. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 01S 20W 23DDD 01 LONG ISLAND WELLNitrate · 500 ft
- 01S 20W 23DA 01Nitrate · 1500 ft
- BURLINGTON NORTHERN RAILROAD CUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- LONG ISLAND GRAIN CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- LONG ISLAND FEED & GRAIN, LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- 01S 20W 26ABA 01Nitrate · 2000 ft
- JUBILEE PORK, INC.CAFO · 1.0 mi
- COX VALLEY VIEW FARMCAFO · 1.2 mi
- LONG ISLAND FEED & GRAIN - LONG ISLAND (N EDGE OF TOWN)Brownfields · 1.4 mi
- 01S 19W 18CBC 01Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- 01S 20W 11DC 01Nitrate · 2.0 mi
- HUSKY HOGS 2CAFO · 2.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Long Island'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 Long Island.
Total Sites
84
within ~10 miles of Long Island
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
17 concentrated animal feeding operations
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Long Island
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Long Island
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Long Island, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Long Island — CAFO (17 sites) and Nitrate (56 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Long Island
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 Long Island average
Your land is one point inside Long Island
Everything above resolves to Long Island as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 263 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 Long Island Average
Long Island Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Long Island
- ●One soil character for all of Long Island
- ●Frost dates read at Long Island's scale: Apr 16 to Oct 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Long Island's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Long Island
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Long Island, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Long Island averages can't show:
We read public map data around Long Island — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Long Island average
How we know this about Long Island
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 Long Island’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 Long Island
When does frost risk typically end in Long Island?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Long Island typically lands around Apr 16, 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 7.
When is the first frost in Long Island?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Long Island typically arrives around Oct 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 8, so the watching starts about Sep 22 — about 189 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Long Island?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Long Island sees about 189 frost-free days — roughly Apr 16 through Oct 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 7 to Oct 8, about 154 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Long Island?
The federal record around Long Island shows 84 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (56), the nearest Nitrate 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 Long Island?
From about Sep 22 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 22 (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 22. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Long Island's scale — its 6a band and its 189-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Long Island'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 Long Island’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Long Island's own scale — its own ~189-day season between 28°F freezes, the 263 acres it covers and 84 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Long Island's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Long Island's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 16 and Oct 22 and the ~189-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 84 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Long Island, the closest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Long Island's boundary and the 263 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~189-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Long Island's own centroid, the Central Great PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Long Island's 263 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Phillips County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Phillips 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 Phillips County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Long Island's 263 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Long Island you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 263 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate 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 Long Island-wide figureread your own land →
More in Kansas
Wider growing context
What grows across KansasLong Island sits outside our named growing regions, so Kansas as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides