Rush County, in Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
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
Rush County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Rush 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 Rush County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Rush County — the short answer
Rush County, Kansas: USDA zone 6a, about 194 days between hard freezes, across 459K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~194
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 459K 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 Rush County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Rush County's 194-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Rush County
Across a year, Rush County accumulates about 3,742 growing degree days above 50°F, about 91 fewer than the middle Kansas county — ahead of 45 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 Rush County
Across Rush County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Harney, Uly, and Roxbury are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.7–7.7, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
84%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Rush County
The USDA soil survey maps 95% of Rush County as well drained — but another 5% drains differently: 4% somewhat excessively drained, 1% moderately well drained.
Harney is the most extensive named soil at 60% of mapped acres, then Uly (13%) and Roxbury (9%).
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 Rush County
Each reading below is measured for Rush 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 Rush 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 Rush County runs about pH 6.7–7.7, 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
MeasuredRush County runs about 194 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
MeasuredRush 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 Rush County is in
Rush 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 Rush County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Rush County's own USDA zone 6a and its own 194-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 Rush County?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 16; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 24 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. As the window narrows, the plantings just get faster — fall brassicas, then greens, then garlic to finish.
Documented around Rush County
- monarch butterfly32 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Rush County
USGS estimates 145,718 lb of Glyphosate on Rush County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (56,510 lb) and Atrazine (54,604 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 Rush County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Rush County — 205 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 Rush 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 Rush County
Closest first, across Rush County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- C & S SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- DEAN'S AUTO SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- 17S 18W 33DBC 01Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- LACROSSE, CITY OFUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- 17S 18W 33ACD 01Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- SCHAFFER OIL CO.Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- EDS AUTO & SUPPLYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- 17S 18W 34BBD 01Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- MILLER TEXACO AKA MILLER HOMESUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- R A G MOTORSBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- CASEY'S GENERAL STORE - #1879Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- KANSAS DEPT OF TRANSPORTATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Rush 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 Rush County.
Total Sites
205
across Rush County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Rush County
Severity Distribution
across Rush County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Rush County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 168 sites across Rush County. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
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 Rush 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 Rush County average
Your land is one point inside Rush County
Everything above resolves to Rush County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 459K 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 Rush County Average
Rush County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Rush County
- ●One soil character for all of Rush County
- ●Frost dates read at Rush County's scale: Apr 13 to Oct 24
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Rush County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Rush County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Rush County, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Rush County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Rush County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Rush County average
How we know this about Rush 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 Rush County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Rush County
When does frost risk typically end in Rush County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Rush County typically lands around Apr 13, 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 4.
How long is the growing season in Rush County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Rush County sees about 194 frost-free days — roughly Apr 13 through Oct 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 4 to Oct 10, about 159 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Rush County?
The federal record around Rush County is a meaningful one — 205 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (168), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Rush County's scale — its 6a band and its 194-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Rush 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 Rush County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Rush County's own scale — its own ~194-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 205 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Rush County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Rush County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~194-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Rush CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 205 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Rush County's boundary and the 459,368 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~194-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Rush County sitting wholly inside the Central Great PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Rush County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Rush 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 Rush County — the ~194 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 Rush County's 459,368 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 205 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 Rush Countyread your own land →