New Strawn, Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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 New Strawn, 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 Strawn 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 Strawn — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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New Strawn — the short answer
New Strawn, Kansas: USDA zone 6b, about 218 days between hard freezes, across 508 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- 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
- ~218
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 508 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 New Strawn's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against New Strawn's 218-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in New Strawn
Each reading below is measured for New Strawn itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNew Strawn runs about 218 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 Strawn 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 New Strawn is in
New Strawn sits in the Central Irregular Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at New Strawn's own centroid rather than borrowed from Coffey County.
What Grows in New Strawn
Every plant below cleared New Strawn's own zone 6b and its 218-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in New Strawn?
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 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 31 (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. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
What's on the federal record near New Strawn
Closest first, within ~10 miles of New Strawn. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MIDWEST CONCRETE MATERIALS - NEW STRAWN READY MIX PLANT (WATER)Toxics Release Inventory · 1500 ft
- MEIER'S READY MIXToxics Release Inventory · 1500 ft
- 21S 15E 10DDD 01Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- WOLF CREEK NUCLEAR OPERATING CORP.Brownfields · 3.4 mi
- 21S 15E 16CDD 01Nitrate · 3.5 mi
- WOLF CREEK GENERATING STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- BURLINGTON HIGH SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- 21S 15E 22DBA 01Nitrate · 3.8 mi
- KANSAS DEPT OF TRANSPORTATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.9 mi
- BURLINGTON ATHLETIC COMPLEXBrownfields · 4.0 mi
- PUMP'N PETE'S #22Underground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- COFFEY BOWLBrownfields · 4.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from New Strawn'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 Strawn.
Total Sites
52
within ~10 miles of New Strawn
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of New Strawn
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of New Strawn
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around New Strawn, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of New Strawn — Nitrate (18 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (4 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Strawn
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 Strawn average
Your land is one point inside New Strawn
Everything above resolves to New Strawn as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 508 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 Strawn Average
New Strawn Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across New Strawn
- ●One soil character for all of New Strawn
- ●Frost dates read at New Strawn's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not New Strawn's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in New Strawn
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in New Strawn, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that New Strawn averages can't show:
We read public map data around New Strawn — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the New Strawn average
How we know this about New Strawn
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 Strawn’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 Strawn
When does frost risk typically end in New Strawn?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in New Strawn typically lands around Mar 31, 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 21.
When is the first frost in New Strawn?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in New Strawn 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 218 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in New Strawn?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, New Strawn sees about 218 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 21, about 183 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in New Strawn?
The federal record around New Strawn shows 52 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (21), the nearest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.3 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 Strawn?
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 New Strawn's scale — its 6b band and its 218-day season. Your yard writes its own version of New Strawn'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 Strawn’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at New Strawn's own scale — its own ~218-day season between 28°F freezes, the 508 acres it covers and 52 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- New Strawn's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- New Strawn's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Nov 4 and the ~218-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 52 documented contamination sites on the federal record near New Strawn, the closest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- New Strawn's boundary and the 508 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~218-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at New Strawn'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 Strawn's 508 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Coffey County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Coffey 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 Coffey County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among New Strawn's 508 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of New Strawn you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 508 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.3 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 Strawn-wide figureread your own land →
More in Kansas
Wider growing context
What grows across KansasNew Strawn sits outside our named growing regions, so Kansas as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides