Decatur County, in Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Decatur County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Decatur 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 Decatur County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Decatur County — the short answer
Decatur County, Kansas: USDA zone 6a, about 183 days between hard freezes, across 572K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~183
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 572K 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 Decatur County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Decatur County's 183-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Decatur County
Across a year, Decatur County accumulates about 3,113 growing degree days above 50°F, about 720 fewer than the middle Kansas county — ahead of 4 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 Decatur County
Across Decatur County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Holdrege, Uly, and Coly are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.2–7.9, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
63%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Decatur County
Holdrege is the most extensive named soil at 40% of mapped acres, then Uly (22%) and Coly (18%).
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 Decatur County
Each reading below is measured for Decatur 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 Decatur County are well drained, in hydrologic group B — 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 Decatur County runs about pH 6.2–7.9, 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
MeasuredDecatur County runs about 183 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
MeasuredDecatur County sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Decatur County is in
Decatur County sits in the Central Great Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Decatur County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Decatur County's own USDA zone 6a and its own 183-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 Decatur County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 22; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 19 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 19 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Even past midsummer there is room for a true fall garden here, and garlic planted near the close carries the momentum into next year.
What gets applied to farmland in Decatur County
USGS estimates 175,309 lb of Glyphosate on Decatur County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (87,060 lb) and Dicamba (55,236 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 Decatur County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Decatur County — 166 documented sites across 4 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 4 concentrated animal feeding operations. Large-scale animal operations that can contaminate soil and groundwater with nitrates and pathogens.
The federal record across Decatur 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 Decatur County
Closest first, across Decatur County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 03S 28W 32BCA 01Nitrate · 2.9 mi
- 04S 28W 02BBA 01Nitrate · 3.2 mi
- DECATUR COUNTY SHOPBrownfields · 3.7 mi
- 03S 29W 01DAB 02Nitrate · 4.0 mi
- 03S 29W 01DBD 01Nitrate · 4.1 mi
- 03S 29W 01DBA 01Nitrate · 4.1 mi
- USD #294Underground Storage Tanks · 4.2 mi
- 03S 29W 01DBB 02Nitrate · 4.2 mi
- 03S 29W 01DBB 01Nitrate · 4.2 mi
- DECATUR COOP-OBERLIN BRANCHBrownfields · 4.3 mi
- 03S 29W 12BBC 01Nitrate · 4.3 mi
- SOUTH CARDTROL DECATUR COOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Decatur 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 Decatur County.
Total Sites
166
across Decatur County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 concentrated animal feeding operations
Sources Checked
across Decatur County
Severity Distribution
across Decatur County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Decatur County, two things run higher than the national average across Decatur County — CAFO (4 sites) and Nitrate (122 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Decatur 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 Decatur County average
Your land is one point inside Decatur County
Everything above resolves to Decatur County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 572K 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 Decatur County Average
Decatur County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Decatur County
- ●One soil character for all of Decatur County
- ●Frost dates read at Decatur County's scale: Apr 19 to Oct 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Decatur County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Decatur County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Decatur County, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Decatur County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Decatur County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Decatur County average
How we know this about Decatur 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 Decatur County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Decatur County
When does frost risk typically end in Decatur County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Decatur County typically lands around Apr 19, 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 10.
How long is the growing season in Decatur County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Decatur County sees about 183 frost-free days — roughly Apr 19 through Oct 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 10 to Oct 5, about 148 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Decatur County?
The federal record around Decatur County shows 166 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (122), the nearest Nitrate record about 2.9 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 Decatur County's scale — its 6a band and its 183-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Decatur 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 Decatur County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Decatur County's own scale — its own ~183-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 166 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Decatur County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Decatur County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~183-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Decatur CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 166 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 2.9 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Decatur County's boundary and the 571,851 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~183-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Decatur County sitting wholly inside the Central Great PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Decatur 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 Decatur County — the ~183 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 Decatur County's 571,851 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 166 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 Decatur Countyread your own land →