Timken, Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Timken, 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 Timken 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 Timken — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Timken — the short answer
Timken, Kansas: USDA zone 6b, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 83 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~200
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 83 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 Timken's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Timken's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Timken
Each reading below is measured for Timken itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredTimken runs about 200 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
MeasuredTimken 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 Timken is in
Timken sits in the Central Great Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Timken's own centroid rather than borrowed from Rush County.
What Grows in Timken
Every plant below cleared Timken's own zone 6b and its 200-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Timken?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 26 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
What's on the federal record near Timken
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Timken. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- RUSH CNTY HWY DEPTBrownfields · 100 ft
- MID-STATE COOP-TIMKENUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- 18S 17W 23CBB 01Nitrate · 900 ft
- 18S 17W 22DAD 01Nitrate · 1900 ft
- 18S 17W 14CDC 01Nitrate · 2600 ft
- 18S 17W 27ABA 01Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- 18S 17W 11CDA 01Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- 18S 16W 19BBA 01Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- 18S 17W 34BCA 01Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- 18S 17W 28BCC 01Nitrate · 2.3 mi
- 18S 16W 18ACB 01Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- 18S 17W 03 01Nitrate · 3.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Timken'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 Timken.
Total Sites
129
within ~10 miles of Timken
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Timken
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Timken
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Timken, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 96 sites within ~10 miles of Timken. 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 Timken
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 Timken average
Your land is one point inside Timken
Everything above resolves to Timken as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 83 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 Timken Average
Timken Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Timken
- ●One soil character for all of Timken
- ●Frost dates read at Timken's scale: Apr 9 to Oct 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Timken's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Timken
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Timken, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Timken averages can't show:
We read public map data around Timken — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Timken average
How we know this about Timken
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 Timken’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 Timken
When does frost risk typically end in Timken?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Timken typically lands around Apr 9, 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 30.
When is the first frost in Timken?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Timken typically arrives around Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 12, so the watching starts about Sep 26 — about 200 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Timken?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Timken sees about 200 frost-free days — roughly Apr 9 through Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 30 to Oct 12, about 165 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Timken?
The federal record around Timken shows 129 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (96), the nearest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile 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 Timken?
From about Sep 26 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 Oct 26 (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 Oct 26. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Timken's scale — its 6b band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Timken'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 Timken’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Timken's own scale — its own ~200-day season between 28°F freezes, the 83 acres it covers and 129 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Timken's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Timken's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 9 and Oct 26 and the ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 129 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Timken, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Timken's boundary and the 83 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~200-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Timken's own centroid, the Central Great PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Timken's 83 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Rush County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Rush 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 Rush County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Timken's 83 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Timken you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 83 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Timken-wide figureread your own land →
More in Kansas
Wider growing context
What grows across KansasTimken sits outside our named growing regions, so Kansas as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides