Miami County, in Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Miami County lies within Greater Kansas City Metro (Kansas Side) — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Miami County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Miami 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 Miami County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Miami County — the short answer
Miami County, Kansas: USDA zone 6b, about 220 days between hard freezes, across 369K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~220
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 369K 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 Miami County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Miami County's 220-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Miami County
Across a year, Miami County accumulates about 3,918 growing degree days above 50°F, about 85 more than the middle Kansas county — ahead of 67 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 Miami County
Across Miami County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Summit, Bucyrus, and Eram 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
69%
Hydric soils
3%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Miami County
The USDA soil survey maps 56% of Miami County as moderately well drained — but another 42% drains differently: 20% well drained, 19% somewhat poorly drained.
Summit is the most extensive named soil at 16% of mapped acres, then Bucyrus (11%) and Eram (11%).
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 Miami County
Each reading below is measured for Miami 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 Miami 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 Miami 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
MeasuredMiami County runs about 220 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
MeasuredMiami 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 Miami County is in
Miami County sits in the Central Irregular Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Miami County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Miami County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 220-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 Miami 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 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 31 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 6 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Miami County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Miami County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 412 miles off. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle1 documented records
- monarch butterfly104 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Miami County
USGS estimates 93,381 lb of Glyphosate on Miami County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acephate (58,264 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (53,991 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 Miami County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Miami County — 171 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site (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 Miami 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 Miami County
Closest first, across Miami County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DOHERTY STEELBrownfields · 1300 ft
- WALMART SUPERCENTER #242Brownfields · 1.3 mi
- MIRASTAR #64041Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- PARK PLAZA PHILLIPS 66Underground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #1 - #123Underground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- PAOLA, CITY OFPFAS · 1.9 mi
- STEVES AUTOBrownfields · 1.9 mi
- O'REILLY AUTO PARTS STORE 205Brownfields · 2.0 mi
- WINTERSCHEID AUTO PARTSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- EMERY OIL CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- BEACHNER GRAIN INC. - PAOLA CUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- USD #368Underground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Miami 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 Miami County.
Total Sites
171
across Miami County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Miami County
Severity Distribution
across Miami County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Miami County, two things run higher than the national average across Miami County — PFAS (7 sites) and Nitrate (50 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Miami 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 Miami County average
Your land is one point inside Miami County
Everything above resolves to Miami County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 369K 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 Miami County Average
Miami County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Miami County
- ●One soil character for all of Miami County
- ●Frost dates read at Miami County's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Miami County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Miami County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Miami County, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Miami County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Miami County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Miami County average
How we know this about Miami 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 Miami County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Miami County
When does frost risk typically end in Miami County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Miami County typically lands around Mar 31, 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 21.
How long is the growing season in Miami County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Miami County sees about 220 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 23, about 185 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Miami County?
The federal record around Miami County is a meaningful one — 171 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (67), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.3 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 Miami County's scale — its 6b band and its 220-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Miami 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 Miami County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Miami County's own scale — its own ~220-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 171 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Miami County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Miami County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~220-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Miami CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 171 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Miami County's boundary and the 368,563 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~220-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Miami County sitting wholly inside the Central Irregular PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Miami County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Miami 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 Miami County — the ~220 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 Miami County's 368,563 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 171 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 Miami Countyread your own land →