Falcon Heights, Minnesota, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
These conditions suit cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Falcon Heights, 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 Falcon Heights 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 Falcon Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Falcon Heights — the short answer
Falcon Heights, Minnesota: USDA zone 5a, about 197 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~197
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 1K 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 5a is Falcon Heights's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Falcon Heights's 197-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Falcon Heights
Each reading below is measured for Falcon Heights itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFalcon Heights runs about 197 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
MeasuredFalcon Heights sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a.
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 Falcon Heights is in
Falcon Heights sits in the North Central Hardwood Forests — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Falcon Heights's own centroid rather than borrowed from Ramsey County.
What Grows in Falcon Heights
Every plant below cleared Falcon Heights's own zone 5a and its 197-day season. Each card opens that plant's Minnesota profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Falcon Heights?
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 15; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 12 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 26 — 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 Falcon Heights
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Falcon Heights. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Machinery & Auto GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- Farm & Grounds Maintenance BuildingUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- MINNESOTA STATE FAIR POLICE DEPTBrownfields · 1400 ft
- Earle Brown Continuing Ed CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- Old Mn/dot Central ShopUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- HUMPHREY HUBERT H JOB CORP CENTERBrownfields · 2200 ft
- AGILENT TECHNOLOGIES INCBrownfields · 2500 ft
- Biological Sciences CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- INSTY PRINTS - FALCON HEIGHTSBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- Falcon Heights city ofUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- KERNIK JAMES DDSBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- PREMIER HEALTH OF FALCON HEIGBrownfields · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Falcon Heights'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 Falcon Heights.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Falcon Heights
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Falcon Heights
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Falcon Heights, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 7,675 sites within ~10 miles of Falcon Heights. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in Falcon Heights
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 Falcon Heights average
Your land is one point inside Falcon Heights
Everything above resolves to Falcon Heights as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Falcon Heights Average
Falcon Heights Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Falcon Heights
- ●One soil character for all of Falcon Heights
- ●Frost dates read at Falcon Heights's scale: Apr 12 to Oct 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Falcon Heights's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Falcon Heights
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Falcon Heights, Minnesota — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Falcon Heights averages can't show:
We read public map data around Falcon Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Falcon Heights average
How we know this about Falcon Heights
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 Falcon Heights’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 Falcon Heights
When does frost risk typically end in Falcon Heights?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Falcon Heights typically lands around Apr 12, 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 3.
When is the first frost in Falcon Heights?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Falcon Heights typically arrives around Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 12, so the watching starts about Sep 26 — about 197 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Falcon Heights?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Falcon Heights sees about 197 frost-free days — roughly Apr 12 through Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 3 to Oct 12, about 162 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Falcon Heights?
The federal record around Falcon Heights runs heavier than most — 10,778 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (7,675), 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 Falcon Heights?
From about Sep 26 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 26 (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 26. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Falcon Heights's scale — its 5a band and its 197-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Falcon Heights'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 Falcon Heights’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Falcon Heights's own scale — its own ~197-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,429 acres it covers and 10,778 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Falcon Heights's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Falcon Heights's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 12 and Oct 26 and the ~197-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 10,778 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Falcon Heights, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Falcon Heights's boundary and the 1,429 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~197-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Falcon Heights'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 Falcon Heights's 1,429 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Ramsey County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Ramsey 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 Ramsey County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Falcon Heights's 1,429 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Falcon Heights you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,429 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 Falcon Heights-wide figureread your own land →
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