Kankakee County, in Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, blueberry, lavender, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Kankakee County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Kankakee 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 Kankakee County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Kankakee County — the short answer
Kankakee County, Illinois: USDA zone 5b, about 210 days between hard freezes, across 433K acres.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~210
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 433K 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 Kankakee County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Kankakee County's 210-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Kankakee County
Across a year, Kankakee County accumulates about 2,988 growing degree days above 50°F, about 395 fewer than the middle Illinois county — ahead of 17 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 Kankakee County
Across Kankakee County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Reddick, Andres, and Gilford are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.4–7.0, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C/D soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
42%
Hydric soils
38%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Kankakee County
The USDA soil survey maps 37% of Kankakee County as poorly drained — but another 62% drains differently: 32% somewhat poorly drained, 10% well drained.
Reddick is the most extensive named soil at 10% of mapped acres, then Andres (9%) and Gilford (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 Kankakee County
Each reading below is measured for Kankakee 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 Kankakee County are poorly drained, in hydrologic group C/D — ground that sheds water slowly.
Beds can stay saturated for days after heavy rain, and the roots of most vegetables, berries, and fruit trees suffocate or rot in soil that never drains.
Raised beds or mounded rows lift roots above the wet zone; choose water-tolerant crops for the lowest spots.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Kankakee County runs about pH 6.4–7.0, 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
MeasuredKankakee County runs about 210 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
Winter hardiness
MeasuredKankakee 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 Kankakee County is in
Kankakee County sits in the Central Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Kankakee County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Kankakee County's own USDA zone 5b and its own 210-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 Kankakee 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 Mar 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 2 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Kankakee County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Kankakee County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 33 miles off. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle3 documented records
- monarch butterfly23 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Kankakee County
USGS estimates 258,514 lb of Glyphosate on Kankakee County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acetochlor (136,105 lb) and Atrazine (120,111 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 Kankakee County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Kankakee County — 595 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 5 Superfund sites. 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 Kankakee 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 Kankakee County
Closest first, across Kankakee County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Kankakee County Training CtrUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- COMMONWEALTH EDISON CO-BRADLEYBrownfields · 400 ft
- Com Ed - Kankakee Area HeadquartersUnderground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- View Fan Usa IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- ABITARE INCBrownfields · 900 ft
- Janyce G Wolf-JacobsUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- WHEELS OF FORTUNEBrownfields · 1000 ft
- Robert A Pippin IndUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- Village of BradleyUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- ALL-PRO COLLISION CENTERBrownfields · 1500 ft
- Ford IrmaUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- Mcginnis Electric IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Kankakee 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 Kankakee County.
Sources Checked
across Kankakee County
Severity Distribution
across Kankakee County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Kankakee County, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 41 sites across Kankakee County. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Kankakee 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 Kankakee County average
Your land is one point inside Kankakee County
Everything above resolves to Kankakee County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 433K 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 Kankakee County Average
Kankakee County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Kankakee County
- ●One soil character for all of Kankakee County
- ●Frost dates read at Kankakee County's scale: Apr 6 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Kankakee County's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Kankakee County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Kankakee County, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Kankakee County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Kankakee County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Kankakee County average
How we know this about Kankakee 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 Kankakee County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Kankakee County
When does frost risk typically end in Kankakee County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Kankakee County typically lands around Apr 6, 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 27.
How long is the growing season in Kankakee County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Kankakee County sees about 210 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 19, about 175 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Kankakee County?
The federal record around Kankakee County is a meaningful one — 595 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (318), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Kankakee County's scale — its 5b band and its 210-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Kankakee 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 Kankakee County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Kankakee County's own scale — its own ~210-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 595 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Kankakee County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Kankakee County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~210-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Kankakee CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 595 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile outFederal environmental registers
- Kankakee County's boundary and the 432,953 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~210-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Kankakee County sitting wholly inside the Central Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Kankakee County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Kankakee 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 Kankakee County — the ~210 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 Kankakee County's 432,953 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 595 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 Kankakee Countyread your own land →