Elbert County, in Colorado, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Expect cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Elbert County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Elbert County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Elbert County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Elbert County — the short answer
Elbert County, Colorado: USDA zone 5b, about 159 days between hard freezes, across 1.2M acres.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- May 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~159
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 1.2M acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 Elbert County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Elbert County's 159-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Elbert County
Across a year, Elbert County accumulates about 2,128 growing degree days above 50°F, about 296 more than the middle Colorado county — ahead of 37 of Colorado’s 64 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Elbert County
Across Elbert County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Bresser, Weld, and Ascalon are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.8–7.2, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Elbert County
The USDA soil survey maps 91% of Elbert County as well drained — but another 6% drains differently: 4% somewhat excessively drained, 2% moderately well drained.
Bresser is the most extensive named soil at 21% of mapped acres, then Weld (8%) and Ascalon (7%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Elbert County
Each reading below is measured for Elbert County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Elbert County are well drained, in hydrologic group B — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Elbert County runs about pH 6.8–7.2, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredElbert County runs about 159 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
MeasuredElbert County 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 Elbert County is in
Elbert County sits in the Southwestern Tablelands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Elbert County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Elbert County's own USDA zone 5b and its own 159-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Colorado profile.
Is it too late to plant in Elbert County?
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 Apr 5; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near May 3 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 9 — 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 gets applied to farmland in Elbert County
USGS estimates 79,994 lb of Glyphosate on Elbert County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (29,572 lb) and Atrazine (22,486 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Elbert County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Elbert County — 106 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Elbert County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Elbert County
Closest first, across Elbert County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SC00906005DAA ARAPMAS27Nitrate · 1.5 mi
- OIT Simla #212Underground Storage Tanks · 6.2 mi
- SC00706132BBC ARAPMAS28Nitrate · 9.4 mi
- M T Small EnginesUnderground Storage Tanks · 12.0 mi
- Happy TimezUnderground Storage Tanks · 12.0 mi
- GOOD SAMARITAN SOCIETY - SIMLABrownfields · 12.0 mi
- BIG SANDY SCHOOL DIST 100-JBrownfields · 12.2 mi
- Elbert County Road & Bridge DeptUnderground Storage Tanks · 12.4 mi
- SC00806233BBC DENMAS05Nitrate · 12.4 mi
- CDOT MathesonUnderground Storage Tanks · 12.5 mi
- SC00806232DAA ARAPMAS22Nitrate · 12.6 mi
- Victory MotorsUnderground Storage Tanks · 13.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Elbert County'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 Elbert County.
Total Sites
106
across Elbert County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Elbert County
Severity Distribution
across Elbert County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Elbert County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 50 sites across Elbert County. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Elbert County
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 Elbert County average
Your land is one point inside Elbert County
Everything above resolves to Elbert County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 1.2M 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Elbert County Average
Elbert County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Elbert County
- ●One soil character for all of Elbert County
- ●Frost dates read at Elbert County's scale: May 3 to Oct 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Elbert County's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Elbert County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Elbert County, Colorado — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Elbert County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Elbert County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Elbert County average
How we know this about Elbert County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Elbert County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Elbert County
When does frost risk typically end in Elbert County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Elbert County typically lands around May 3, 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 24.
How long is the growing season in Elbert County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Elbert County sees about 159 frost-free days — roughly May 3 through Oct 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 24 to Sep 25, about 124 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Elbert County?
The federal record around Elbert County is a meaningful one — 106 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (50), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.5 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
Everything above is measured at Elbert County's scale — its 5b band and its 159-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Elbert County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Colorado's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Elbert County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Elbert County's own scale — its own ~159-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 106 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Elbert County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Elbert County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~159-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Elbert CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 106 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 1.5 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Elbert County's boundary and the 1,184,054 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~159-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Elbert County sitting wholly inside the Southwestern TablelandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Elbert County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Colorado grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Colorado
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Elbert County — the ~159 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Elbert County's 1,184,054 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 106 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Elbert Countyread your own land →