St. Paul Park, 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.
The conditions favor cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in St. Paul Park, 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 St. Paul Park 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 St. Paul Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
St. Paul Park — the short answer
St. Paul Park, Minnesota: USDA zone 5a, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 9
- 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
- ~200
- 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 5a is St. Paul Park's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against St. Paul Park's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in St. Paul Park
Each reading below is measured for St. Paul Park itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSt. Paul Park runs about 200 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredSt. Paul Park 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 St. Paul Park is in
St. Paul Park sits in the North Central Hardwood Forests — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at St. Paul Park's own centroid rather than borrowed from Washington County.
What Grows in St. Paul Park
Every plant below cleared St. Paul Park's own zone 5a and its 200-day season. Each card opens that plant's Minnesota profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in St. Paul Park?
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 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 9 (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. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
What's on the federal record near St. Paul Park
Closest first, within ~10 miles of St. Paul Park. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- RUMPCA COMPANIES, INC.Brownfields · 450 ft
- Rumpca Companies IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- WITZEL TREE MOVINGBrownfields · 950 ft
- 027N22W12DAC 01 St Paul Park 2Nitrate · 1600 ft
- Nuevas Fronteras BP #2Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- ISD 833 OLTMAN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 1800 ft
- SHAFER CABINETS INCBrownfields · 2200 ft
- DIAZ AUTOBrownfields · 2500 ft
- BLUE TECH MOTORSBrownfields · 2500 ft
- NIGHTHAWK TRANSPORT INCBrownfields · 2500 ft
- 027N21W07CCC 01Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- DISCOVERY COMMUNITY CHURCHBrownfields · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from St. Paul Park'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 St. Paul Park.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of St. Paul Park
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of St. Paul Park
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around St. Paul Park, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 2,399 sites within ~10 miles of St. Paul Park. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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 St. Paul Park
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 St. Paul Park average
Your land is one point inside St. Paul Park
Everything above resolves to St. Paul Park 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 St. Paul Park Average
St. Paul Park Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across St. Paul Park
- ●One soil character for all of St. Paul Park
- ●Frost dates read at St. Paul Park's scale: Apr 9 to Oct 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not St. Paul Park's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in St. Paul Park
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in St. Paul Park, Minnesota — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that St. Paul Park averages can't show:
We read public map data around St. Paul Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the St. Paul Park average
How we know this about St. Paul Park
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 St. Paul Park’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 St. Paul Park
When does frost risk typically end in St. Paul Park?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in St. Paul Park typically lands around Apr 9, 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 Apr 30.
When is the first frost in St. Paul Park?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in St. Paul Park 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 200 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in St. Paul Park?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, St. Paul Park sees about 200 frost-free days — roughly Apr 9 through Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 30 to Oct 12, about 165 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in St. Paul Park?
The federal record around St. Paul Park runs heavier than most — 3,438 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (2,399), the nearest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile 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 St. Paul Park?
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 St. Paul Park's scale — its 5a band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of St. Paul Park'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 St. Paul Park’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at St. Paul Park's own scale — its own ~200-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,919 acres it covers and 3,438 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- St. Paul Park's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- St. Paul Park's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 9 and Oct 26 and the ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 3,438 documented contamination sites on the federal record near St. Paul Park, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- St. Paul Park's boundary and the 1,919 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~200-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at St. Paul Park'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 St. Paul Park's 1,919 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 St. Paul Park's 1,919 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of St. Paul Park you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,919 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 St. Paul Park-wide figureread your own land →