Wabaunsee, Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Wabaunsee, 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 Wabaunsee 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 Wabaunsee — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Wabaunsee — the short answer
Wabaunsee, Kansas: USDA zone 6b, about 209 days between hard freezes, across 867 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~209
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 867 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 Wabaunsee's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Wabaunsee's 209-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Wabaunsee
Each reading below is measured for Wabaunsee itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWabaunsee runs about 209 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
MeasuredWabaunsee 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 Wabaunsee is in
Wabaunsee sits in the Flint Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Wabaunsee's own centroid rather than borrowed from Wabaunsee County.
What Grows in Wabaunsee
Every plant below cleared Wabaunsee's own zone 6b and its 209-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Wabaunsee?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 4 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 30 — 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 Wabaunsee
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Wabaunsee. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 10S 09E 25AC 01Nitrate · 1.2 mi
- 10S 10E 19CCA 02Nitrate · 1.3 mi
- 10S 09E 25BD 01Nitrate · 1.4 mi
- 10S 10E 19BAC 01Nitrate · 1.9 mi
- 10S 10E 21BDB 01Nitrate · 2.5 mi
- 10S 10E 18ACC 01Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- 10S 10E 17DBA 01Nitrate · 2.7 mi
- APAC KANSAS INCORPORATED SHEARS PLANT 400Toxics Release Inventory · 2.7 mi
- 10S 09E 14DCB 01Nitrate · 3.0 mi
- 10S 10E 17AAD 01Nitrate · 3.2 mi
- 10S 10E 16BBC 01Nitrate · 3.2 mi
- 10S 10E 16DBA 01Nitrate · 3.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Wabaunsee'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 Wabaunsee.
Total Sites
202
within ~10 miles of Wabaunsee
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
5 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Wabaunsee
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Wabaunsee
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Wabaunsee, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 130 sites within ~10 miles of Wabaunsee. 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.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Wabaunsee
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 Wabaunsee average
Your land is one point inside Wabaunsee
Everything above resolves to Wabaunsee as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 867 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 town 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 Wabaunsee Average
Wabaunsee Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Wabaunsee
- ●One soil character for all of Wabaunsee
- ●Frost dates read at Wabaunsee's scale: Apr 4 to Oct 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Wabaunsee's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Wabaunsee
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Wabaunsee, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Wabaunsee averages can't show:
We read public map data around Wabaunsee — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Wabaunsee average
How we know this about Wabaunsee
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Wabaunsee’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 town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-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 Wabaunsee
When does frost risk typically end in Wabaunsee?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Wabaunsee typically lands around Apr 4, 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 25.
When is the first frost in Wabaunsee?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Wabaunsee typically arrives around Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 16, so the watching starts about Sep 30 — about 209 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Wabaunsee?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Wabaunsee sees about 209 frost-free days — roughly Apr 4 through Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 25 to Oct 16, about 174 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Wabaunsee?
The federal record around Wabaunsee is a meaningful one — 202 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (130), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.2 miles 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 Wabaunsee?
From about Sep 30 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 30 (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 30. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Wabaunsee's scale — its 6b band and its 209-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Wabaunsee'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 Wabaunsee’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Wabaunsee's own scale — its own ~209-day season between 28°F freezes, the 867 acres it covers and 202 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Wabaunsee's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Wabaunsee's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 4 and Oct 30 and the ~209-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 202 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Wabaunsee, the closest Nitrate record about 1.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Wabaunsee's boundary and the 867 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~209-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Wabaunsee's own centroid, the Flint HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Wabaunsee's 867 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Wabaunsee County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Wabaunsee 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 Wabaunsee County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Wabaunsee's 867 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Wabaunsee you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 867 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 1.2 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 Wabaunsee-wide figureread your own land →
More in Kansas
Growing region
Nearby growing guides