West Mineral, Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — 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, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in West Mineral, 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 West Mineral 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 West Mineral — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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West Mineral — the short answer
West Mineral, Kansas: USDA zone 7a, about 228 days between hard freezes, across 216 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~228
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 216 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 West Mineral's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against West Mineral's 228-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in West Mineral
Each reading below is measured for West Mineral itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWest Mineral runs about 228 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
MeasuredWest Mineral 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 West Mineral is in
West Mineral sits in the Central Irregular Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at West Mineral's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cherokee County.
What Grows in West Mineral
Every plant below cleared West Mineral's own zone 7a and its 228-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in West Mineral?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 9 — 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 West Mineral
Closest first, within ~10 miles of West Mineral. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 32S 23E 06D 01Nitrate · 250 ft
- 32S 23E 06DDA 01Nitrate · 1200 ft
- PRESTO VIA INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- 32S 22E 01DDA 01Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- 32S 22E 12DAA 01Nitrate · 1.1 mi
- 32S 23E 05DDA 01Nitrate · 1.2 mi
- 32S 23E 05DDD 01Nitrate · 1.2 mi
- 31S 22E 35DDD 01Nitrate · 2.0 mi
- 31S 22E 25DD 01Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- MID AMERICA PIPE FABRICATING & SUPPLY COBrownfields · 2.6 mi
- 32S 23E 14BBC 01Nitrate · 3.6 mi
- HALLOWELL MANUFACTURINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from West Mineral'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 West Mineral.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of West Mineral
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of West Mineral
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around West Mineral, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 60 sites within ~10 miles of West Mineral. 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 West Mineral
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 West Mineral average
Your land is one point inside West Mineral
Everything above resolves to West Mineral as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 216 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 West Mineral Average
West Mineral Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across West Mineral
- ●One soil character for all of West Mineral
- ●Frost dates read at West Mineral's scale: Mar 26 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not West Mineral's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in West Mineral
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in West Mineral, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that West Mineral averages can't show:
We read public map data around West Mineral — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the West Mineral average
How we know this about West Mineral
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 West Mineral’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 West Mineral
When does frost risk typically end in West Mineral?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in West Mineral typically lands around Mar 26, 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 16.
When is the first frost in West Mineral?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in West Mineral typically arrives around Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 26, so the watching starts about Oct 10 — about 228 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in West Mineral?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, West Mineral sees about 228 frost-free days — roughly Mar 26 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 16 to Oct 26, about 193 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in West Mineral?
The federal record around West Mineral is a meaningful one — 115 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (60), the nearest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile 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 West Mineral?
From about Oct 10 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 9 (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 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at West Mineral's scale — its 7a band and its 228-day season. Your yard writes its own version of West Mineral'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 West Mineral’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at West Mineral's own scale — its own ~228-day season between 28°F freezes, the 216 acres it covers and 115 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- West Mineral's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- West Mineral's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 26 and Nov 9 and the ~228-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 115 documented contamination sites on the federal record near West Mineral, the closest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- West Mineral's boundary and the 216 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~228-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at West Mineral's own centroid, the Central Irregular PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so West Mineral's 216 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cherokee County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cherokee 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 Cherokee County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among West Mineral's 216 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of West Mineral you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 216 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate 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 West Mineral-wide figureread your own land →