Stark, 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.
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 Stark, 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 Stark 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 Stark — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Stark — the short answer
Stark, Kansas: USDA zone 6b, about 224 days between hard freezes, across 105 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 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~224
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 105 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 Stark's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Stark's 224-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Stark
Each reading below is measured for Stark itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredStark runs about 224 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
MeasuredStark 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 Stark is in
Stark sits in the Central Irregular Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Stark's own centroid rather than borrowed from Neosho County.
What Grows in Stark
Every plant below cleared Stark's own zone 6b and its 224-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Stark?
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 8 — 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 Stark
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Stark. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 27S 21E 08CC 01Nitrate · 1.1 mi
- 28S 21E 05BB 01Nitrate · 3.2 mi
- 28S 21E 05B 01Nitrate · 3.3 mi
- 26S 21E 28AAA 01Nitrate · 5.3 mi
- 28S 20E 09DA 01Nitrate · 6.1 mi
- 28S 20E 24AD 01Nitrate · 6.5 mi
- SEVART SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.1 mi
- 26S 20E 13BBA 01Nitrate · 7.2 mi
- 28S 21E 29AA 01Nitrate · 7.2 mi
- WALNUT R REPEATER STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.2 mi
- BOURBON CO RWD 2CPFAS · 7.3 mi
- FORT SCOTT, CITY OFPFAS · 7.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Stark'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 Stark.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Stark
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Stark
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Stark, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 40 sites within ~10 miles of Stark. 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.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Stark
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 Stark average
Your land is one point inside Stark
Everything above resolves to Stark as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 105 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 Stark Average
Stark Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Stark
- ●One soil character for all of Stark
- ●Frost dates read at Stark's scale: Mar 29 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Stark's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Stark
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Stark, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Stark averages can't show:
We read public map data around Stark — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Stark average
How we know this about Stark
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 Stark’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 Stark
When does frost risk typically end in Stark?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Stark 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 Stark?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Stark typically arrives around Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 25, so the watching starts about Oct 9 — about 224 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Stark?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Stark sees about 224 frost-free days — roughly Mar 29 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 19 to Oct 25, about 189 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Stark?
The federal record around Stark shows 50 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (40), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.1 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 Stark?
From about Oct 9 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 8 (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 8. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Stark's scale — its 6b band and its 224-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Stark'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 Stark’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Stark's own scale — its own ~224-day season between 28°F freezes, the 105 acres it covers and 50 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Stark's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Stark's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 29 and Nov 8 and the ~224-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 50 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Stark, the closest Nitrate record about 1.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Stark's boundary and the 105 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~224-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Stark's own centroid, the Central Irregular PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Stark's 105 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Neosho County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Neosho 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 Neosho County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Stark's 105 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Stark you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 105 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 1.1 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 Stark-wide figureread your own land →