Medicine Lodge, Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Medicine Lodge, 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 Medicine Lodge 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 Medicine Lodge — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Medicine Lodge — the short answer
Medicine Lodge, Kansas: USDA zone 7a, about 217 days between hard freezes, across 767 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~217
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 767 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 Medicine Lodge's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Medicine Lodge's 217-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Medicine Lodge
Each reading below is measured for Medicine Lodge itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMedicine Lodge runs about 217 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
MeasuredMedicine Lodge 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 Medicine Lodge is in
Medicine Lodge sits in the Southwestern Tablelands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Medicine Lodge's own centroid rather than borrowed from Barber County.
What Grows in Medicine Lodge
Every plant below cleared Medicine Lodge's own zone 7a and its 217-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Medicine Lodge?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 4 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Medicine Lodge
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Medicine Lodge. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- TXO PRODUCTION CORPORATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- MEDICINE RIVER ENTERPRISESUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- EATON STANDARD STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- BLACK DIAMOND EXPRESS, LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- SLINKARD OIL COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- LYMAN INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- KANSAS DEPT OF TRANSPORTATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- MEDICINE LODGE MEMORIAL HOSPITUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- DIRKS COPY PRODUCTSBrownfields · 1800 ft
- BOBS RPRBrownfields · 1900 ft
- SILL OIL COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- BARBER COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Medicine Lodge'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 Medicine Lodge.
Total Sites
132
within ~10 miles of Medicine Lodge
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Medicine Lodge
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Medicine Lodge
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Medicine Lodge, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 90 sites within ~10 miles of Medicine Lodge. 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 Medicine Lodge
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 Medicine Lodge average
Your land is one point inside Medicine Lodge
Everything above resolves to Medicine Lodge as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 767 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 Medicine Lodge Average
Medicine Lodge Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Medicine Lodge
- ●One soil character for all of Medicine Lodge
- ●Frost dates read at Medicine Lodge's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Medicine Lodge's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Medicine Lodge
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Medicine Lodge, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Medicine Lodge averages can't show:
We read public map data around Medicine Lodge — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Medicine Lodge average
How we know this about Medicine Lodge
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 Medicine Lodge’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 Medicine Lodge
When does frost risk typically end in Medicine Lodge?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Medicine Lodge typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
When is the first frost in Medicine Lodge?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Medicine Lodge typically arrives around Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 21, so the watching starts about Oct 5 — about 217 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Medicine Lodge?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Medicine Lodge sees about 217 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 21, about 182 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Medicine Lodge?
The federal record around Medicine Lodge shows 132 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (90), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles 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 Medicine Lodge?
From about Oct 5 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 4 (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 4. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Medicine Lodge's scale — its 7a band and its 217-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Medicine Lodge'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 Medicine Lodge’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Medicine Lodge's own scale — its own ~217-day season between 28°F freezes, the 767 acres it covers and 132 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Medicine Lodge's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Medicine Lodge's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 4 and the ~217-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 132 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Medicine Lodge, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Medicine Lodge's boundary and the 767 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~217-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Medicine Lodge's own centroid, the Southwestern TablelandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Medicine Lodge's 767 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Barber County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Barber 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 Barber County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Medicine Lodge's 767 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Medicine Lodge you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 767 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Medicine Lodge-wide figureread your own land →
More in Kansas
Wider growing context
What grows across KansasMedicine Lodge sits outside our named growing regions, so Kansas as a whole is its closest context here.