Pine Springs, Minnesota, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Pine Springs, 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 Pine Springs 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 Pine Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Pine Springs — the short answer
Pine Springs, Minnesota: USDA zone 5a, about 193 days between hard freezes, across 493 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 15
- 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
- ~193
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 493 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 Pine Springs's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pine Springs's 193-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Pine Springs
Each reading below is measured for Pine Springs itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPine Springs runs about 193 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
MeasuredPine Springs 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 Pine Springs is in
Pine Springs sits in the North Central Hardwood Forests — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Pine Springs's own centroid rather than borrowed from Washington County.
What Grows in Pine Springs
Every plant below cleared Pine Springs's own zone 5a and its 193-day season. Each card opens that plant's Minnesota profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Pine Springs?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 18; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 15 (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. As the window narrows, the plantings just get faster — fall brassicas, then greens, then garlic to finish.
What's on the federal record near Pine Springs
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Pine Springs. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- H152847_001Nitrate · 2000 ft
- 413692Nitrate · 2500 ft
- 409697Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- 154327Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- 163414Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- 153486Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- 139262Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- 617672Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- 497610Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- 176040Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- 135376Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- 409680Nitrate · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pine Springs'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 Pine Springs.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Pine Springs
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Pine Springs
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Pine Springs, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 2,634 sites within ~10 miles of Pine Springs. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
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 Pine Springs
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 Pine Springs average
Your land is one point inside Pine Springs
Everything above resolves to Pine Springs as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 493 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 Pine Springs Average
Pine Springs Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Pine Springs
- ●One soil character for all of Pine Springs
- ●Frost dates read at Pine Springs's scale: Apr 15 to Oct 25
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pine Springs's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Pine Springs
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pine Springs, Minnesota — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pine Springs averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pine Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pine Springs average
How we know this about Pine Springs
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 Pine Springs’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 Pine Springs
When does frost risk typically end in Pine Springs?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pine Springs typically lands around Apr 15, 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 6.
When is the first frost in Pine Springs?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Pine Springs 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 193 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Pine Springs?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pine Springs sees about 193 frost-free days — roughly Apr 15 through Oct 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 6 to Oct 11, about 158 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Pine Springs?
The federal record around Pine Springs runs heavier than most — 3,902 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (2,634), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.4 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 Pine Springs?
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 Pine Springs's scale — its 5a band and its 193-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pine Springs'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 Pine Springs’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Pine Springs's own scale — its own ~193-day season between 28°F freezes, the 493 acres it covers and 3,902 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pine Springs's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pine Springs's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 15 and Oct 25 and the ~193-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 3,902 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Pine Springs, the closest Nitrate record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Pine Springs's boundary and the 493 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~193-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Pine Springs'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 Pine Springs's 493 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Washington County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Washington 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 Washington County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Pine Springs's 493 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Pine Springs you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 493 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.4 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 Pine Springs-wide figureread your own land →