New Albany, Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in New Albany, 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 New Albany 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 New Albany — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
New Albany — the short answer
New Albany, Kansas: USDA zone 7a, about 221 days between hard freezes, across 118 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- 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
- 118 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 New Albany's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against New Albany's 221-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in New Albany
Each reading below is measured for New Albany itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNew Albany 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
MeasuredNew Albany 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 New Albany is in
New Albany sits in the Central Irregular Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at New Albany's own centroid rather than borrowed from Wilson County.
What Grows in New Albany
Every plant below cleared New Albany's own zone 7a and its 221-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in New Albany?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. 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. 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 New Albany
Closest first, within ~10 miles of New Albany. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 28S 14E 18ABA 01Nitrate · 3.7 mi
- 29S 14E 09DAC 01Nitrate · 4.1 mi
- 28S 13E 30BA 01Nitrate · 5.2 mi
- WAYNES FULL SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.8 mi
- GILTNER MOTORSBrownfields · 5.8 mi
- BLAKER SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.9 mi
- BASHOR SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.9 mi
- SHUE OIL COUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.0 mi
- R. K. STEEL (AIR)Brownfields · 6.1 mi
- R. K. STEEL (AIR)Toxics Release Inventory · 6.1 mi
- CUMMINGS CORNERUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.1 mi
- CHANDLER OIL (4TH) (STORMWATER)Brownfields · 6.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from New Albany'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 New Albany.
Total Sites
58
within ~10 miles of New Albany
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of New Albany
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of New Albany
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around New Albany, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of New Albany — Nitrate (24 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (4 sites). 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.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in New Albany
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 New Albany average
Your land is one point inside New Albany
Everything above resolves to New Albany as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 118 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 New Albany Average
New Albany Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across New Albany
- ●One soil character for all of New Albany
- ●Frost dates read at New Albany's scale: Mar 29 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not New Albany's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in New Albany
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in New Albany, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that New Albany averages can't show:
We read public map data around New Albany — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the New Albany average
How we know this about New Albany
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 New Albany’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 New Albany
When does frost risk typically end in New Albany?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in New Albany 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 New Albany?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in New Albany 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 New Albany?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, New Albany 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 New Albany?
The federal record around New Albany shows 58 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (24), the nearest Nitrate record about 3.7 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 New Albany?
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 New Albany's scale — its 7a band and its 221-day season. Your yard writes its own version of New Albany'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 New Albany’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at New Albany's own scale — its own ~221-day season between 28°F freezes, the 118 acres it covers and 58 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- New Albany's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- New Albany's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 29 and Nov 5 and the ~221-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 58 documented contamination sites on the federal record near New Albany, the closest Nitrate record about 3.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- New Albany's boundary and the 118 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~221-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at New Albany's own centroid, the Central Irregular PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so New Albany's 118 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Wilson County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Wilson 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 Wilson County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among New Albany's 118 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of New Albany you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 118 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 3.7 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 New Albany-wide figureread your own land →