Butler County, in Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
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.
Butler County lies within the Flint Hills — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Butler County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Butler 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 Butler County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Butler County — the short answer
Butler County, Kansas: USDA zone 7a, about 221 days between hard freezes, across 915K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~221
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 915K 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 Butler County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Butler County's 221-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Butler County
Across a year, Butler County accumulates about 4,113 growing degree days above 50°F, about 280 more than the middle Kansas county — ahead of 93 of Kansas’s 105 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 Butler County
Across Butler County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Irwin, Dwight, and Labette are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silty clay loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.1–6.5, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
47%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Butler County
The USDA soil survey maps 56% of Butler County as well drained — but another 43% drains differently: 37% moderately well drained, 5% somewhat poorly drained.
Irwin is the most extensive named soil at 24% of mapped acres, then Dwight (16%) and Labette (16%).
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 Butler County
Each reading below is measured for Butler 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 Butler 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 Butler County runs about pH 6.1–6.5, 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
MeasuredButler County runs about 221 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
MeasuredButler County sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Butler County is in
Butler County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Flint Hills (80%) and Central Great Plains (20%). 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 Butler County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Butler County's own USDA zone 7a and its own 221-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 Kansas profile.
Is it too late to plant in Butler 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 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 8 — 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 Butler County
- monarch butterfly2,981 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Butler County
USGS estimates 183,833 lb of Glyphosate on Butler County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acephate (97,715 lb) and Atrazine (90,552 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 Butler County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Butler County — 1,225 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 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 Butler 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 Butler County
Closest first, across Butler County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 26S 05E 23DDD 01Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- 26S 05E 24ABB 01Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- 26S 06E 30AAD 01Nitrate · 1.2 mi
- EL DORADO MUNICIPAL AIRPORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- WIEBE AIR RPRBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- 26S 05E 35AAA 01Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- 26S 05E 12CCC 01Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- 26S 06E 07CDD 01Nitrate · 1.8 mi
- EL DORADO WASTEWATER TRTMT FACUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- 26S 05E 27DCC 01Nitrate · 2.2 mi
- EL DORADO CORRECTIONAL WORK FAUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- EL DORADO CORRECTIONAL FACILITUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Butler 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 Butler County.
Severity Distribution
across Butler County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Butler County, two things run higher than the national average across Butler County — Nitrate (910 sites) and CAFO (12 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check your specific parcel in Butler 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 Butler County average
Your land is one point inside Butler County
Everything above resolves to Butler County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 915K 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 Butler County Average
Butler County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Butler County
- ●One soil character for all of Butler County
- ●Frost dates read at Butler County's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Butler County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Butler County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Butler County, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Butler County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Butler County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Butler County average
How we know this about Butler 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 Butler County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Butler County
When does frost risk typically end in Butler County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Butler County typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
How long is the growing season in Butler County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Butler County sees about 221 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 25, about 186 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Butler County?
The federal record around Butler County is a meaningful one — 1,225 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (910), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.5 miles 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 Butler County's scale — its 7a band and its 221-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Butler 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 Kansas's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Butler County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Butler County's own scale — its own ~221-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 1,225 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Butler County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Butler County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~221-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Butler CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 1,225 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 0.5 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Butler County's boundary and the 915,017 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~221-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Butler County spans, Flint Hills the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Butler County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Butler County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Kansas grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Kansas
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Butler County — the ~221 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 Butler County's 915,017 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 1,225 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 Butler Countyread your own land →