Melvern, Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Melvern, 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 Melvern 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 Melvern — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Melvern — the short answer
Melvern, Kansas: USDA zone 6b, about 221 days between hard freezes, across 228 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 29
- 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
- ~221
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 228 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 Melvern's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Melvern's 221-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Melvern
Each reading below is measured for Melvern itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMelvern runs about 221 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
MeasuredMelvern 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 Melvern is in
Melvern sits in the Central Irregular Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Melvern's own centroid rather than borrowed from Osage County.
What Grows in Melvern
Every plant below cleared Melvern's own zone 6b and its 221-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Melvern?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 29 (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. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Melvern
Survey cells within 31 miles of Melvern checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 450 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Melvern
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Melvern. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MILLERS PLBG & SERV STAUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- CIRCLE L CONVENIENCEUnderground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- JONES SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- 17S 16E 33DDD 01Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- MELVERN LAKE PROJECT USCEBrownfields · 1.9 mi
- MELVERN LAKE MARINA INCBrownfields · 2.3 mi
- 18S 16E 14DD 01Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- 17S 16E 26AA 01Nitrate · 3.3 mi
- CORP OF ENGINEERS, LAKE MELVERUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
- 17S 16E 20AA 01Nitrate · 4.0 mi
- MELVERN LAKE MARINA, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- 18S 16E 30BC 01Nitrate · 4.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Melvern'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 Melvern.
Total Sites
67
within ~10 miles of Melvern
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Melvern
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Melvern
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Melvern, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 34 sites within ~10 miles of Melvern. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Melvern
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 Melvern average
Your land is one point inside Melvern
Everything above resolves to Melvern as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 228 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 Melvern Average
Melvern Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Melvern
- ●One soil character for all of Melvern
- ●Frost dates read at Melvern's scale: Mar 29 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Melvern's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Melvern
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Melvern, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Melvern averages can't show:
We read public map data around Melvern — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Melvern average
How we know this about Melvern
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 Melvern’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 Melvern
When does frost risk typically end in Melvern?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Melvern typically lands around Mar 29, 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 19.
When is the first frost in Melvern?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Melvern 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 221 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Melvern?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Melvern sees about 221 frost-free days — roughly Mar 29 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 19 to Oct 22, about 186 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Melvern?
The federal record around Melvern is a meaningful one — 67 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (34), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Melvern?
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 Melvern's scale — its 6b band and its 221-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Melvern'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 Melvern’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Melvern's own scale — its own ~221-day season between 28°F freezes, the 228 acres it covers and 67 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Melvern's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Melvern's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 29 and Nov 5 and the ~221-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 67 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Melvern, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Melvern's boundary and the 228 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~221-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Melvern's own centroid, the Central Irregular PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Melvern 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 Melvern's 228 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Osage County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Osage 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 Osage County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Melvern's 228 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Melvern you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 228 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 Melvern-wide figureread your own land →
More in Kansas
Wider growing context
What grows across KansasMelvern sits outside our named growing regions, so Kansas as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides