Cedar Mills, Minnesota, sits in USDA hardiness zone 4b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, cranberry, turkish rocket, 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 Cedar Mills, 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 Cedar Mills 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 Cedar Mills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Cedar Mills — the short answer
Cedar Mills, Minnesota: USDA zone 4b, about 186 days between hard freezes, across 205 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 4b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~186
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 205 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 4b is Cedar Mills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cedar Mills's 186-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cedar Mills
Each reading below is measured for Cedar Mills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCedar Mills 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
MeasuredCedar Mills sits in USDA hardiness zone 4b.
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 Cedar Mills is in
Cedar Mills sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Cedar Mills's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Meeker County is mostly North Central Hardwood Forests. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Cedar Mills
Every plant below cleared Cedar Mills's own zone 4b and its 186-day season. Each card opens that plant's Minnesota profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Cedar Mills?
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 19; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 16 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 19 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Even past midsummer there is room for a true fall garden here, and garlic planted near the close carries the momentum into next year.
What's on the federal record near Cedar Mills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cedar Mills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- City Of Hutchinson/street-fire DeptUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- 535098Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- 660933Nitrate · 3.6 mi
- 727864Nitrate · 3.6 mi
- 613911Nitrate · 4.2 mi
- 538279Nitrate · 4.6 mi
- 602911Nitrate · 4.8 mi
- HUTCHINSON CONCRETEBrownfields · 5.2 mi
- 194041Nitrate · 5.4 mi
- 454000Nitrate · 5.8 mi
- G R DANIELS TRUCKING INCBrownfields · 6.0 mi
- 186358Nitrate · 6.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cedar Mills'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 Cedar Mills.
Total Sites
223
within ~10 miles of Cedar Mills
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
10 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cedar Mills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cedar Mills
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Cedar Mills
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 Cedar Mills average
Your land is one point inside Cedar Mills
Everything above resolves to Cedar Mills as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 205 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 Cedar Mills Average
Cedar Mills Average
- ●USDA Zones 4b, averaged across Cedar Mills
- ●One soil character for all of Cedar Mills
- ●Frost dates read at Cedar Mills's scale: Apr 16 to Oct 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cedar Mills's 4b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cedar Mills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cedar Mills, Minnesota — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cedar Mills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cedar Mills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cedar Mills average
How we know this about Cedar Mills
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 Cedar Mills’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 Cedar Mills
When does frost risk typically end in Cedar Mills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cedar Mills typically lands around Apr 16, 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 7.
When is the first frost in Cedar Mills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cedar Mills typically arrives around Oct 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 5, so the watching starts about Sep 19 — about 186 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Cedar Mills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cedar Mills sees about 186 frost-free days — roughly Apr 16 through Oct 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 7 to Oct 5, about 151 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cedar Mills?
The federal record around Cedar Mills is a meaningful one — 223 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (90), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 2.1 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 Cedar Mills?
From about Sep 19 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 19 (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 19. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Cedar Mills's scale — its 4b band and its 186-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cedar Mills'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 Cedar Mills’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Cedar Mills's own scale — its own ~186-day season between 28°F freezes, the 205 acres it covers and 223 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cedar Mills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 4bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cedar Mills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 16 and Oct 19 and the ~186-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 223 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cedar Mills, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 2.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cedar Mills's boundary and the 205 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 4b and a ~186-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Cedar Mills sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Cedar Mills's 205 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Meeker County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Meeker County
- The growing challenges every Minnesota grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Minnesota
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Meeker County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Cedar Mills's 205 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cedar Mills you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 205 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 2.1 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 Cedar Mills-wide figureread your own land →
More in Minnesota
Wider growing context
What grows across MinnesotaCedar Mills sits outside our named growing regions, so Minnesota as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides