Fremont County, in Colorado, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
These conditions suit cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Fremont County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Fremont 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 Fremont County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Fremont County — the short answer
Fremont County, Colorado: USDA zone 6a, about 159 days between hard freezes, across 982K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- 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
- 982K 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 6a is Fremont County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Fremont County's 159-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Fremont County
Across a year, Fremont County accumulates about 2,110 growing degree days above 50°F, about 278 more than the middle Colorado county — ahead of 36 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 Fremont County
Across Fremont County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Boyle, Rogert, and Bushvalley are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a very gravelly sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.7–7.6, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Hydric soils
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Fremont County
The USDA soil survey maps 92% of Fremont County as well drained — but another 6% drains differently: 4% somewhat excessively drained, 1% moderately well drained.
Boyle is the most extensive named soil at 10% of mapped acres, then Rogert (4%) and Bushvalley (4%).
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 Fremont County
Each reading below is measured for Fremont 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 Fremont County are well drained, in hydrologic group D — 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 Fremont County runs about pH 6.7–7.6, 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
MeasuredFremont 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
MeasuredFremont County sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Fremont County is in
Fremont County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Southern Rockies (83%) and Southwestern Tablelands (17%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Fremont County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Fremont County's own USDA zone 6a 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 Fremont County?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. 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. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
Documented around Fremont County
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Fremont County
USGS estimates 1,374 lb of Glyphosate on Fremont County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Dicamba (1,167 lb) and Diuron (835 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 Fremont County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Fremont County — 289 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 4 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Fremont County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Fremont County
Closest first, across Fremont County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Baker Gulch ProspectMining · 1.6 mi
- Morning Star Claims 1943Mining · 1.7 mi
- Copper Gulch DepositMining · 1.8 mi
- Upper Copper Gulch ClaimsMining · 2.2 mi
- Arkansas River Placers DistrictMining · 2.3 mi
- Spikebuck MineMining · 2.5 mi
- Unnamed Copper Pegmatite OccurrenceMining · 2.7 mi
- Leeks LodeMining · 3.0 mi
- Meyers-Mcmullin PegmatiteMining · 3.1 mi
- Good News No.2 ClaimsMining · 3.6 mi
- Colfelco PegmatiteMining · 3.7 mi
- Copper GirlMining · 3.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Fremont 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 Fremont County.
Sources Checked
across Fremont County
Severity Distribution
across Fremont County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Fremont County, two things run higher than the national average across Fremont County — Mining (109 sites) and PFAS (3 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Fremont 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 Fremont County average
Your land is one point inside Fremont County
Everything above resolves to Fremont County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 982K 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 Fremont County Average
Fremont County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Fremont County
- ●One soil character for all of Fremont County
- ●Frost dates read at Fremont County's scale: May 3 to Oct 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Fremont County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Fremont County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Fremont County, Colorado — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Fremont County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Fremont County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Fremont County average
How we know this about Fremont 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 Fremont County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Fremont County
When does frost risk typically end in Fremont County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Fremont 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 Fremont County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Fremont 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 Fremont County?
The federal record around Fremont County runs heavier than most — 289 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (127), the nearest Mining record about 1.6 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.
Everything above is measured at Fremont County's scale — its 6a band and its 159-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Fremont 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 Fremont County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Fremont County's own scale — its own ~159-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 289 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Fremont County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Fremont 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 Fremont CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 289 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Mining record about 1.6 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Fremont County's boundary and the 981,654 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~159-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Fremont County spans, Southern Rockies the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Fremont County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Fremont 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 Fremont 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 Fremont County's 981,654 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 289 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 Fremont Countyread your own land →