Lake County, in Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Lake County lies within Chicagoland (Chicago metro / lakeshore) — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Lake County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Lake 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 Lake County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Lake County — the short answer
Lake County, Illinois: USDA zone 6a, about 208 days between hard freezes, across 284K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~208
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 284K 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 Lake County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lake County's 208-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Lake County
Across a year, Lake County accumulates about 2,802 growing degree days above 50°F, about 581 fewer than the middle Illinois county — ahead of 10 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 Lake County
Across Lake County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Ozaukee, Markham, and Houghton are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.5–7.0, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Moderately well drained
Prime farmland
48%
Hydric soils
26%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Lake County
The USDA soil survey maps 43% of Lake County as moderately well drained — but another 50% drains differently: 21% somewhat poorly drained, 15% poorly drained.
Ozaukee is the most extensive named soil at 25% of mapped acres, then Markham (8%) and Houghton (6%).
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 Lake County
Each reading below is measured for Lake 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 Lake County are moderately well drained, in hydrologic group C — roughly the middle of the drainage range.
This is close to the middle most vegetables prefer: it holds enough water to carry a crop between rains without staying waterlogged. The catch is that a wet spring or a low corner can still tip it soggy.
Plant on the site as-is for most crops, but keep the lowest, slowest-draining beds for moisture-tolerant plantings.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Lake County runs about pH 6.5–7.0, 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
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 26% of Lake 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
MeasuredLake County runs about 208 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 Lake County is in
Lake County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Southeastern Wisconsin Till Plains (69%) and Central Corn Belt Plains (31%). 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 Lake County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Lake County's own USDA zone 6a and its own 208-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 Lake 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 Mar 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 8 (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. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Lake County
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Lake County, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle7 documented records
- monarch butterfly122 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Lake County
USGS estimates 13,995 lb of Glyphosate on Lake County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (5,406 lb) and Acetochlor (5,381 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 Lake County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Lake County — 2,352 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 29 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Lake 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 Lake County
Closest first, across Lake County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HP OilUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- Leonards Union 76Underground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- BP Highland Park (SS# 278)Underground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- Il Bell Telephone CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- SHERWIN WILLIAMS 1900Brownfields · 1100 ft
- Highland Park HospitalUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- Werhane Service CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- BEM I, LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- Lake Car Wash IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- John Zengeler CleanersUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- Midtown Ser IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- ULTIMATE PAINT SHOPBrownfields · 1700 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lake 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 Lake County.
Severity Distribution
across Lake County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lake County, PFAS runs higher than the national average — 34 sites across Lake County. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Lake 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 Lake County average
Your land is one point inside Lake County
Everything above resolves to Lake County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 284K 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 Lake County Average
Lake County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Lake County
- ●One soil character for all of Lake County
- ●Frost dates read at Lake County's scale: Apr 8 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lake County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Lake County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lake County, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lake County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lake County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lake County average
How we know this about Lake 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 Lake County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Lake County
When does frost risk typically end in Lake County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lake County typically lands around Apr 8, 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 29.
How long is the growing season in Lake County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lake County sees about 208 frost-free days — roughly Apr 8 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 29 to Oct 19, about 173 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lake County?
The federal record around Lake County runs heavier than most — 2,352 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,185), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Lake County's scale — its 6a band and its 208-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lake 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 Lake County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Lake County's own scale — its own ~208-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 2,352 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lake County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lake County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~208-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Lake CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 2,352 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Lake County's boundary and the 283,955 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~208-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Lake County spans, Southeastern Wisconsin Till Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Lake County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Lake 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 Lake County — the ~208 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 Lake County's 283,955 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 2,352 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 Lake Countyread your own land →