Lead, South Dakota, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, cranberry, lavender, 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 Lead, 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 Lead 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 Lead — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Lead — the short answer
Lead, South Dakota: USDA zone 5b, about 146 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- May 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~146
- 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 5b is Lead's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lead's 146-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lead
Each reading below is measured for Lead itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLead runs about 146 days between hard freezes — a short growing season.
Long-maturing crops like melons, sweet potatoes, and winter squash can run out of runway before the first hard freeze, ripening late or not at all.
Lead with fast-maturing varieties, and stretch the season on both ends with cold frames, low tunnels, or a greenhouse.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredLead sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b.
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 Lead is in
Lead sits in the Middle Rockies — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at Lead's own centroid rather than borrowed from Lawrence County.
What Grows in Lead
Every plant below cleared Lead's own zone 5b and its 146-day season. Each card opens that plant's South Dakota profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lead?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Apr 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near May 12 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 5 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Even here the calendar’s edges hold value: thirty-day greens late in the window, then garlic and a rested bed for spring.
What's on the federal record near Lead
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lead. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- OPEN CUT MINEUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- COMMON CENTS #121Underground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- LEAD MERCURY SPILLSuperfund · 850 ft
- HOMESTAKE MINEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- CITY SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- DAKOTAMART GASUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- PATS SINCLAIRUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- HI-GRADE MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- ORE CAR EXPRESSBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- LEAD-DEADWOOD SCHOOL DISTRICT 40-1Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- DEADWOOD GULCH LODGE INCBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- HOMESTAKE MINING COUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lead'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 Lead.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lead
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lead
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lead, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Lead — Mining (65 sites) and Nitrate (80 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Lead
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 Lead average
Your land is one point inside Lead
Everything above resolves to Lead 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 Lead Average
Lead Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Lead
- ●One soil character for all of Lead
- ●Frost dates read at Lead's scale: May 12 to Oct 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lead's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lead
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lead, South Dakota — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lead averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lead — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lead average
How we know this about Lead
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 Lead’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 Lead
When does frost risk typically end in Lead?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lead typically lands around May 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 Jun 2.
When is the first frost in Lead?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lead typically arrives around Oct 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Sep 21, so the watching starts about Sep 5 — about 146 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lead?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lead sees about 146 frost-free days — roughly May 12 through Oct 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Jun 2 to Sep 21, about 111 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lead?
The federal record around Lead runs heavier than most — 219 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (80), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 gardeners stretch the season in Lead?
With about 146 frost-free days between hard freezes, Lead rewards the classic extension moves: floating row cover buys roughly two to four extra weeks at each shoulder — on this season that is a working window nearer 174 to 202 days — and cold frames or low tunnels buy more. Starting transplants indoors ahead of the May 12 hard-freeze normal stretches the season without touching the calendar.
Everything above is measured at Lead's scale — its 5b band and its 146-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lead'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 Lead’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Lead's own scale — its own ~146-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,317 acres it covers and 219 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lead's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lead's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about May 12 and Oct 5 and the ~146-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 219 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lead, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lead's boundary and the 1,317 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~146-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Lead's own centroid, the Middle RockiesUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Lead's 1,317 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Lawrence County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Lawrence County
- The growing challenges every South Dakota grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom South Dakota
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Lawrence County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Lead's 1,317 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lead you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,317 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Lead-wide figureread your own land →
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