Rawlins County, in Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Expect cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, 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
Rawlins County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Rawlins 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 Rawlins County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Rawlins County — the short answer
Rawlins County, Kansas: USDA zone 6a, about 177 days between hard freezes, across 684K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~177
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 684K 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 Rawlins County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Rawlins County's 177-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Rawlins County
Across a year, Rawlins County accumulates about 3,103 growing degree days above 50°F, about 730 fewer than the middle Kansas county — ahead of 3 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 Rawlins County
Across Rawlins County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Keith, Colby, and Kuma are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.9–7.9, slightly alkaline. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
2%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Rawlins County
The USDA soil survey maps 99% of Rawlins County as well drained — but another 1% drains differently: 1% somewhat poorly drained.
Keith is the most extensive named soil at 39% of mapped acres, then Colby (28%) and Kuma (14%).
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 Rawlins County
Each reading below is measured for Rawlins 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 Rawlins County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — 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 Rawlins County runs about pH 6.9–7.9, on the alkaline side.
Many vegetables cope, but acid-lovers like blueberries struggle, and iron and manganese lock up above about pH 7.5 — leaves yellow between the veins even in rich soil.
Elemental sulfur and generous organic matter lower pH slowly for the beds that need it; test first so you add only what the soil actually calls for.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredRawlins County runs about 177 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
MeasuredRawlins 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 Rawlins County is in
Rawlins County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Central Great Plains (72%) and High Plains (28%). 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 Rawlins County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Rawlins County's own USDA zone 6a and its own 177-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 Rawlins 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 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 23 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 17 — 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.
Documented around Rawlins County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Rawlins County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 542 miles off. What to watch for.
What gets applied to farmland in Rawlins County
USGS estimates 297,909 lb of Glyphosate on Rawlins County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (131,652 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (95,443 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 Rawlins County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Rawlins County — 141 documented sites across 4 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 concentrated animal feeding operation. Large-scale animal operations that can contaminate soil and groundwater with nitrates and pathogens.
The federal record across Rawlins 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 Rawlins County
Closest first, across Rawlins County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- RAWLINS CNTY HHW SITEBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- FIKAN AND SONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- 03S 33W 08CBD 01Nitrate · 1.7 mi
- 03S 33W 08DBD 01Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- 03S 33W 08ACC 01Nitrate · 2.2 mi
- MACFEE OIL COUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- C W BEAMGARD CO INCBrownfields · 2.2 mi
- FRONTIER AG. INC. - ATWOODUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- BURLINGTON NORTHERN RAILROAD CUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- BEARDSLEY EQUITY COOP ASSCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- ATWOOD EQUITY COOPERATIVE EXCHUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- USD 105 RAWLINS CNTYBrownfields · 2.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Rawlins 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 Rawlins County.
Total Sites
141
across Rawlins County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 concentrated animal feeding operation
Sources Checked
across Rawlins County
Severity Distribution
across Rawlins County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Rawlins County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 102 sites across Rawlins County. 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.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Rawlins 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 Rawlins County average
Your land is one point inside Rawlins County
Everything above resolves to Rawlins County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 684K 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 Rawlins County Average
Rawlins County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Rawlins County
- ●One soil character for all of Rawlins County
- ●Frost dates read at Rawlins County's scale: Apr 23 to Oct 17
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Rawlins County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Rawlins County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Rawlins County, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Rawlins County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Rawlins County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Rawlins County average
How we know this about Rawlins 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 Rawlins County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Rawlins County
When does frost risk typically end in Rawlins County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Rawlins County typically lands around Apr 23, 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 14.
How long is the growing season in Rawlins County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Rawlins County sees about 177 frost-free days — roughly Apr 23 through Oct 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 14 to Oct 3, about 142 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Rawlins County?
The federal record around Rawlins County shows 141 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (102), the nearest Brownfields record about 1.6 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 Rawlins County's scale — its 6a band and its 177-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Rawlins 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 Rawlins County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Rawlins County's own scale — its own ~177-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 141 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Rawlins County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Rawlins County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~177-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Rawlins CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 141 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 1.6 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Rawlins County's boundary and the 684,426 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~177-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Rawlins County spans, Central Great Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Rawlins 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 Rawlins County — the ~177 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 Rawlins County's 684,426 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 141 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 Rawlins Countyread your own land →