Dickinson County, in Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Expect cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Dickinson County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Dickinson 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 Dickinson County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Dickinson County — the short answer
Dickinson County, Kansas: USDA zone 6b, about 213 days between hard freezes, across 542K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~213
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 542K 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 6b is Dickinson County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Dickinson County's 213-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Dickinson County
Across a year, Dickinson County accumulates about 4,091 growing degree days above 50°F, about 258 more than the middle Kansas county — ahead of 87 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 Dickinson County
Across Dickinson County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Irwin, Crete, and Clime are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately 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
Moderately well drained
Prime farmland
85%
Hydric soils
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Dickinson County
The USDA soil survey maps 66% of Dickinson County as moderately well drained — but another 34% drains differently: 32% well drained, 1% excessively drained.
Irwin is the most extensive named soil at 45% of mapped acres, then Crete (17%) and Clime (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 Dickinson County
Each reading below is measured for Dickinson 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 Dickinson County are moderately well drained, in hydrologic group D — 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 Dickinson 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
MeasuredDickinson County runs about 213 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
MeasuredDickinson County sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Dickinson County is in
Dickinson County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Central Great Plains (79%) and Flint Hills (21%). 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 Dickinson County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Dickinson County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 213-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 Dickinson 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 6; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 3 (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. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Dickinson County
- monarch butterfly5 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Dickinson County
USGS estimates 234,899 lb of Glyphosate on Dickinson County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acephate (122,155 lb) and Atrazine (40,840 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 Dickinson County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Dickinson County — 285 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed). 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 Dickinson 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 Dickinson County
Closest first, across Dickinson County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MIDCO PLASTICS INCBrownfields · 3.0 mi
- KRISHER'S KORNERUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
- PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
- ABB-RAYMONDBrownfields · 3.4 mi
- AT&SF RAILWAY COUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- GREAT PLAINS MANUFACTURING INC - ENTERPRISEBrownfields · 3.5 mi
- 13S 03E 20ACC 02Nitrate · 3.5 mi
- 13S 03E 20ACC 01Nitrate · 3.5 mi
- ENTERPRISE MINI MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- 13S 02E 21DDC 01Nitrate · 3.5 mi
- 13S 03E 20ACB 01Nitrate · 3.6 mi
- SHOUSE IMPLEMENT CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Dickinson 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 Dickinson County.
Total Sites
285
across Dickinson County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Dickinson County
Severity Distribution
across Dickinson County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Dickinson County, two things run higher than the national average across Dickinson County — Nitrate (110 sites) and CAFO (3 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 Dickinson 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 Dickinson County average
Your land is one point inside Dickinson County
Everything above resolves to Dickinson County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 542K 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 Dickinson County Average
Dickinson County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Dickinson County
- ●One soil character for all of Dickinson County
- ●Frost dates read at Dickinson County's scale: Apr 3 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Dickinson County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Dickinson County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Dickinson County, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Dickinson County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Dickinson County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Dickinson County average
How we know this about Dickinson 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 Dickinson County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Dickinson County
When does frost risk typically end in Dickinson County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Dickinson County typically lands around Apr 3, 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 24.
How long is the growing season in Dickinson County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Dickinson County sees about 213 frost-free days — roughly Apr 3 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 24 to Oct 19, about 178 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Dickinson County?
The federal record around Dickinson County is a meaningful one — 285 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (110), the nearest Brownfields record about 3.0 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 Dickinson County's scale — its 6b band and its 213-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Dickinson 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 Dickinson County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Dickinson County's own scale — its own ~213-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 285 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Dickinson County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Dickinson County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~213-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Dickinson CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 285 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 3.0 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Dickinson County's boundary and the 542,123 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~213-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Dickinson County spans, Central Great Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Dickinson County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Dickinson 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 Dickinson County — the ~213 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 Dickinson County's 542,123 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 285 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 Dickinson Countyread your own land →