Sturgis, South Dakota, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Growers here do well with cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Sturgis, 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 Sturgis 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 Sturgis — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Sturgis — the short answer
Sturgis, South Dakota: USDA zone 5b, about 169 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~169
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 4K 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 Sturgis's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Sturgis's 169-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Sturgis
Each reading below is measured for Sturgis itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSturgis runs about 169 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
MeasuredSturgis 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 Sturgis is in
Sturgis sits in the Middle Rockies — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at Sturgis's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Meade County is mostly Northwestern Great Plains. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Sturgis
Every plant below cleared Sturgis's own zone 5b and its 169-day season. Each card opens that plant's South Dakota profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Sturgis?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Apr 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 29 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 15 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
What's on the federal record near Sturgis
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Sturgis. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- JBC ENTERPRISESUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- JACOBS AUTO REPAIRUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- STURGIS COMMUNITY FED CREDIT UNIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- LANTERN MOTELUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- CORNER PANTRY #6Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- CON0-MART #6Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- FARMERS FEED & SEED CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- BEAR BUTTE STATE PARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- STURGIS TIRE & AUTOMATICBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- MEADE COUNTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- MEADE SCHOOL DISTRICT 46-1Brownfields · 0.7 mi
- STURGIS REGIONAL HEALTHUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Sturgis'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 Sturgis.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Sturgis
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Sturgis
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Sturgis, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Sturgis — Mining (44 sites) and Superfund (3 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Sturgis
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 Sturgis average
Your land is one point inside Sturgis
Everything above resolves to Sturgis as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 Sturgis Average
Sturgis Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Sturgis
- ●One soil character for all of Sturgis
- ●Frost dates read at Sturgis's scale: Apr 29 to Oct 15
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Sturgis's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Sturgis
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Sturgis, South Dakota — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Sturgis averages can't show:
We read public map data around Sturgis — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Sturgis average
How we know this about Sturgis
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 Sturgis’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 Sturgis
When does frost risk typically end in Sturgis?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Sturgis typically lands around Apr 29, 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 20.
When is the first frost in Sturgis?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Sturgis typically arrives around Oct 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 1, so the watching starts about Sep 15 — about 169 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Sturgis?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Sturgis sees about 169 frost-free days — roughly Apr 29 through Oct 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 20 to Oct 1, about 134 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Sturgis?
The federal record around Sturgis runs heavier than most — 172 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (60), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Sturgis?
From about Sep 15 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 15 (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 15. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Sturgis's scale — its 5b band and its 169-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Sturgis'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 Sturgis’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Sturgis's own scale — its own ~169-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,197 acres it covers and 172 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Sturgis's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Sturgis's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 29 and Oct 15 and the ~169-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 172 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Sturgis, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Sturgis's boundary and the 4,197 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~169-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Sturgis sits in the Middle Rockies — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Sturgis's 4,197 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Meade County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Meade 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 Meade County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Sturgis's 4,197 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Sturgis you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,197 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Sturgis-wide figureread your own land →
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