Cold Spring, Minnesota, sits in USDA hardiness zone 4b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
These conditions suit cabbage, cranberry, turkish rocket, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Cold Spring, 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 Cold Spring 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 Cold Spring — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Cold Spring — the short answer
Cold Spring, Minnesota: USDA zone 4b, about 180 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 4b
- 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 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~180
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 2K 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 Cold Spring's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cold Spring's 180-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cold Spring
Each reading below is measured for Cold Spring itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCold Spring runs about 180 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
MeasuredCold Spring 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 Cold Spring is in
Cold Spring sits in the North Central Hardwood Forests — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Cold Spring's own centroid rather than borrowed from Stearns County.
What Grows in Cold Spring
Every plant below cleared Cold Spring's own zone 4b and its 180-day season. Each card opens that plant's Minnesota profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Cold Spring?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. 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 19 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Cold Spring
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cold Spring. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Tjs Gas & BaitUnderground Storage Tanks · 250 ft
- COLD SPRING BREWING COMPANYBrownfields · 250 ft
- 123N30W15DDB 01 Cold SpringNitrate · 500 ft
- LUMBER ONE COLD SPRINGBrownfields · 850 ft
- COLD SPRING MEDICAL CLINICBrownfields · 950 ft
- THRIFTY WHITE PHARMACY 776Brownfields · 950 ft
- COLD SPRING GRANITE FOUNDRYToxics Release Inventory · 950 ft
- STONE THOMAS J DDSBrownfields · 1000 ft
- KIESS CHEVROLETBrownfields · 1000 ft
- O'REILLY AUTO PARTS 5761Brownfields · 1200 ft
- ASSUMPTION HOME CAREBrownfields · 1200 ft
- Cold Spring Coop CreameryUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cold Spring'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 Cold Spring.
Total Sites
325
within ~10 miles of Cold Spring
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
8 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cold Spring
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cold Spring
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cold Spring, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Cold Spring — CAFO (5 sites) and PFAS (4 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Cold Spring
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 Cold Spring average
Your land is one point inside Cold Spring
Everything above resolves to Cold Spring as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Cold Spring Average
Cold Spring Average
- ●USDA Zones 4b, averaged across Cold Spring
- ●One soil character for all of Cold Spring
- ●Frost dates read at Cold Spring's scale: Apr 22 to Oct 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cold Spring's 4b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cold Spring
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cold Spring, Minnesota — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cold Spring averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cold Spring — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cold Spring average
How we know this about Cold Spring
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 Cold Spring’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 Cold Spring
When does frost risk typically end in Cold Spring?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cold Spring 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 Cold Spring?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cold Spring 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 180 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Cold Spring?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cold Spring sees about 180 frost-free days — roughly Apr 22 through Oct 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 13 to Oct 5, about 145 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cold Spring?
The federal record around Cold Spring is a meaningful one — 325 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (126), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Cold Spring?
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 Cold Spring's scale — its 4b band and its 180-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cold Spring'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 Cold Spring’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Cold Spring's own scale — its own ~180-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,795 acres it covers and 325 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cold Spring's own USDA hardiness band, zones 4bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cold Spring's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 22 and Oct 19 and the ~180-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 325 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cold Spring, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cold Spring's boundary and the 1,795 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 4b and a ~180-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Cold Spring's own centroid, the North Central Hardwood ForestsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Cold Spring's 1,795 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Stearns County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Stearns 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 Stearns County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Cold Spring's 1,795 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cold Spring you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,795 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Cold Spring-wide figureread your own land →
More in Minnesota
Wider growing context
What grows across MinnesotaCold Spring sits outside our named growing regions, so Minnesota as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides