Dimondale, Michigan, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
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 Dimondale, 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 Dimondale 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 Dimondale — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Dimondale — the short answer
Dimondale, Michigan: USDA zone 6a, about 186 days between hard freezes, across 570 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~186
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 570 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 6a is Dimondale's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Dimondale's 186-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Dimondale
Each reading below is measured for Dimondale itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDimondale runs about 186 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredDimondale sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Dimondale is in
Dimondale sits in the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Dimondale's own centroid rather than borrowed from Eaton County.
What Grows in Dimondale
Every plant below cleared Dimondale's own zone 6a and its 186-day season. Each card opens that plant's Michigan profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Dimondale?
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 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 22 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 25 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Late in the year the fall bench takes over — quick greens, radishes, and garlic that repays you next summer.
Documented around Dimondale
Survey cells within 31 miles of Dimondale checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 69 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Dimondale
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Dimondale. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Lansing Ice & FuelUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- Dimondale Express MartUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- Village Of DimondaleUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- Stuarts ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Speedway #6616Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- MI DEPT/TRANSPORTATIONBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- DEPT/TRANSPORTATION BRIDGE (R01-23152)Brownfields · 1.1 mi
- Grand Pointe Marina, IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- ADESA LANSING INCBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- Pour House IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- Concrete Step CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- JFS Investment LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Dimondale'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 Dimondale.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Dimondale
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Dimondale
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Dimondale
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 Dimondale average
Your land is one point inside Dimondale
Everything above resolves to Dimondale as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 570 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 Dimondale Average
Dimondale Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Dimondale
- ●One soil character for all of Dimondale
- ●Frost dates read at Dimondale's scale: Apr 22 to Oct 25
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Dimondale's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Dimondale
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Dimondale, Michigan — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Dimondale averages can't show:
We read public map data around Dimondale — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Dimondale average
How we know this about Dimondale
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 Dimondale’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 Dimondale
When does frost risk typically end in Dimondale?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Dimondale typically lands around Apr 22, 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 May 13.
When is the first frost in Dimondale?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Dimondale typically arrives around Oct 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 11, so the watching starts about Sep 25 — about 186 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Dimondale?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Dimondale sees about 186 frost-free days — roughly Apr 22 through Oct 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 13 to Oct 11, about 151 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Dimondale?
The federal record around Dimondale runs heavier than most — 1,601 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (807), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Dimondale?
From about Sep 25 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 25 (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 25. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Dimondale's scale — its 6a band and its 186-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Dimondale'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 Dimondale’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Dimondale's own scale — its own ~186-day season between 28°F freezes, the 570 acres it covers and 1,601 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Dimondale's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Dimondale's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 22 and Oct 25 and the ~186-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,601 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Dimondale, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Dimondale's boundary and the 570 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~186-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Dimondale's own centroid, the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Dimondale checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Dimondale's 570 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Eaton County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Eaton County
- The growing challenges every Michigan grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Michigan
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Eaton County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Dimondale's 570 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Dimondale you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 570 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Dimondale-wide figureread your own land →
More in Michigan
Wider growing context
What grows across MichiganDimondale sits outside our named growing regions, so Michigan as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides