Gallatin County, in Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Gallatin County lies within the Shawnee Hills / Southern Illinois (Little Egypt) — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Gallatin County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Gallatin 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 Gallatin County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Gallatin County — the short answer
Gallatin County, Illinois: USDA zone 7a, about 230 days between hard freezes, across 207K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~230
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 207K 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 7a is Gallatin County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Gallatin County's 230-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Gallatin County
Across a year, Gallatin County accumulates about 4,029 growing degree days above 50°F, about 646 more than the middle Illinois county — ahead of 94 of Illinois’s 102 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 Gallatin County
Across Gallatin County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Reesville, Alford, and Patton are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.9–6.7, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C/D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
21%
Hydric soils
26%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Gallatin County
The USDA soil survey maps 32% of Gallatin County as well drained — but another 67% drains differently: 29% somewhat poorly drained, 20% poorly drained.
Reesville is the most extensive named soil at 9% of mapped acres, then Alford (7%) and Patton (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 Gallatin County
Each reading below is measured for Gallatin 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 Gallatin County are well drained, in hydrologic group C/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 Gallatin County runs about pH 5.9–6.7, 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
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 26% of Gallatin County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredGallatin County runs about 230 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
The kind of country Gallatin County is in
Gallatin County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Interior River Valleys and Hills (78%) and Interior Plateau (22%). 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 Gallatin County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Gallatin County's own USDA zone 7a and its own 230-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 Illinois profile.
Is it too late to plant in Gallatin 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 Feb 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 25 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 10 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Gallatin County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Gallatin County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 140 miles off. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly15 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Gallatin County
USGS estimates 83,558 lb of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s on Gallatin County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor-s (64,801 lb) and Atrazine (57,938 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 Gallatin County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Gallatin County — 69 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Toxics Release Inventory facility. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Gallatin County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Gallatin County
Closest first, across Gallatin County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 9S9E-17.2h1Nitrate · 1.5 mi
- North Gallatin School Dist #1Underground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- Moye NhUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- Crop Prod SerUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- Scherrer GeorgeUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- Lawler John MUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- TRI COUNTY FERTILIZER INCBrownfields · 2.7 mi
- McGuire Oil Co.Underground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- Tri County Fertilizer IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- Ridgway PlantUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- Ridgeway Wills 76Underground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- Ridgeway Quick MartUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Gallatin 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 Gallatin County.
Total Sites
69
across Gallatin County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
across Gallatin County
Severity Distribution
across Gallatin County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Gallatin County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 53 sites across Gallatin County. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Gallatin 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 Gallatin County average
Your land is one point inside Gallatin County
Everything above resolves to Gallatin County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 207K 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 Gallatin County Average
Gallatin County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Gallatin County
- ●One soil character for all of Gallatin County
- ●Frost dates read at Gallatin County's scale: Mar 25 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Gallatin County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Gallatin County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Gallatin County, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Gallatin County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Gallatin County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Gallatin County average
How we know this about Gallatin 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 Gallatin County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Gallatin County
When does frost risk typically end in Gallatin County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Gallatin County typically lands around Mar 25, 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 15.
How long is the growing season in Gallatin County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Gallatin County sees about 230 frost-free days — roughly Mar 25 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 15 to Oct 27, about 195 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Gallatin County?
The federal record around Gallatin County shows 69 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (53), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.5 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
Everything above is measured at Gallatin County's scale — its 7a band and its 230-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Gallatin 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 Illinois's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Gallatin County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Gallatin County's own scale — its own ~230-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 69 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Gallatin County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Gallatin County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~230-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Gallatin CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 69 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 1.5 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Gallatin County's boundary and the 206,683 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~230-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Gallatin County spans, Interior River Valleys and Hills the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Gallatin County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Gallatin County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Illinois grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Illinois
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Gallatin County — the ~230 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 Gallatin County's 206,683 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 69 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 Gallatin Countyread your own land →