Franklin County, in Iowa, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
These conditions suit cabbage, cranberry, lavender, 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
Franklin County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Franklin 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 Franklin County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Franklin County — the short answer
Franklin County, Iowa: USDA zone 5a, about 182 days between hard freezes, across 372K acres.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~182
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 372K 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 5a is Franklin County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Franklin County's 182-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Franklin County
Across a year, Franklin County accumulates about 2,496 growing degree days above 50°F, about 248 fewer than the middle Iowa county — ahead of 16 of Iowa’s 99 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 Franklin County
Across Franklin County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Clarion, Nicollet, and Webster are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.2–6.7, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C/D soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
49%
Hydric soils
36%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Franklin County
The USDA soil survey maps 35% of Franklin County as poorly drained — but another 65% drains differently: 27% well drained, 17% somewhat poorly drained.
Clarion is the most extensive named soil at 14% of mapped acres, then Nicollet (10%) and Webster (8%).
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 Franklin County
Each reading below is measured for Franklin 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 Franklin 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 Franklin County runs about pH 6.2–6.7, 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
Season length
MeasuredFranklin County runs about 182 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
MeasuredFranklin County sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a.
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 Franklin County is in
Franklin County sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Franklin County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Franklin County's own USDA zone 5a and its own 182-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 Iowa profile.
Is it too late to plant in Franklin 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 20; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 17 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 16 — 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 Franklin County
- monarch butterfly16 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Franklin County
USGS estimates 283,462 lb of Glyphosate on Franklin County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acetochlor (187,396 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (108,554 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 Franklin County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Franklin County — 181 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 12 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Franklin 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 Franklin County
Closest first, across Franklin County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HAMPTON HYDRAULICS LLC-DIV OF SEABEEToxics Release Inventory · 1.5 mi
- TWIN STATE INCToxics Release Inventory · 2.1 mi
- OMNIUMBrownfields · 2.3 mi
- OMNIUMToxics Release Inventory · 2.3 mi
- CENTURION HAMPTONBrownfields · 2.3 mi
- 091N20W05DBBB 1971Hampton 4Nitrate · 2.4 mi
- SEABEE FOUNDRY - HWY 3 - DIV HAMPTON HYDRAULICSToxics Release Inventory · 2.5 mi
- SEABEE FOUNDRY - HWY 3 - DIV HAMPTON HYDRAULICSBrownfields · 2.5 mi
- NORTH CENTRAL FS, INC. HAMPTON PLANTBrownfields · 2.5 mi
- AGVANTAGE FSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- 092N20W33CCC 01727 1943Nitrate · 2.5 mi
- WINNEBAGO INDUSTRIES, INC - HAMPTONToxics Release Inventory · 2.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Franklin 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 Franklin County.
Total Sites
181
across Franklin County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
12 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Franklin County
Severity Distribution
across Franklin County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Franklin County, two things run higher than the national average across Franklin County — Toxics Release Inventory (12 sites) and Nitrate (48 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Franklin 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 Franklin County average
Your land is one point inside Franklin County
Everything above resolves to Franklin County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 372K 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 Franklin County Average
Franklin County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Franklin County
- ●One soil character for all of Franklin County
- ●Frost dates read at Franklin County's scale: Apr 17 to Oct 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Franklin County's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Franklin County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Franklin County, Iowa — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Franklin County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Franklin County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Franklin County average
How we know this about Franklin 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 Franklin County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Franklin County
When does frost risk typically end in Franklin County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Franklin County typically lands around Apr 17, 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 8.
How long is the growing season in Franklin County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Franklin County sees about 182 frost-free days — roughly Apr 17 through Oct 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 8 to Oct 2, about 147 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Franklin County?
The federal record around Franklin County shows 181 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (98), the nearest Toxics Release Inventory 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 Franklin County's scale — its 5a band and its 182-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Franklin 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 Iowa's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Franklin County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Franklin County's own scale — its own ~182-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 181 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Franklin County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Franklin County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~182-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Franklin CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 181 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Toxics Release Inventory record about 1.5 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Franklin County's boundary and the 372,462 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~182-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Franklin County sitting wholly inside the Western Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Franklin County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Franklin County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Iowa grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Iowa
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Franklin County — the ~182 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 Franklin County's 372,462 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 181 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 Franklin Countyread your own land →