Sedgwick County, in Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Sedgwick County lies within the Wichita / South-Central Kansas (Arkansas River Lowlands) — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Sedgwick County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Sedgwick 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 Sedgwick County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Sedgwick County — the short answer
Sedgwick County, Kansas: USDA zone 7a, about 226 days between hard freezes, across 638K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~226
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 638K 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 7a is Sedgwick County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Sedgwick County's 226-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Sedgwick County
Across a year, Sedgwick County accumulates about 4,242 growing degree days above 50°F, about 409 more than the middle Kansas county — ahead of 101 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 Sedgwick County
Across Sedgwick County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Blanket, Nalim, and Elandco are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.2–6.9, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
77%
Hydric soils
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Sedgwick County
The USDA soil survey maps 69% of Sedgwick County as well drained — but another 24% drains differently: 16% moderately well drained, 6% somewhat poorly drained.
Blanket is the most extensive named soil at 16% of mapped acres, then Nalim (10%) and Elandco (7%).
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 Sedgwick County
Each reading below is measured for Sedgwick 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 Sedgwick 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 Sedgwick County runs about pH 6.2–6.9, 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
MeasuredSedgwick County runs about 226 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
MeasuredSedgwick County sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Sedgwick County is in
Sedgwick 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 Sedgwick County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Sedgwick County's own USDA zone 7a and its own 226-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 Sedgwick County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 29 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 10 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Sedgwick County
- Japanese beetle11 documented records
- monarch butterfly8,146 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Sedgwick County
USGS estimates 292,545 lb of Glyphosate on Sedgwick County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (194,823 lb) and Metolachlor-s (176,990 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 Sedgwick County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Sedgwick County — 3,135 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 12 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Sedgwick County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Sedgwick County
Closest first, across Sedgwick County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- JOHNSON'S GENERAL STORE #35Underground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- FLEMING CONVENIENCEUnderground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- JAL INVESTMENTSUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- 27S 01W 30AADA01 CUL-110Nitrate · 1600 ft
- FIRE STATION #17Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- ROLLING HILLS COUNTRY CLUBUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- ROLLING HILLS COUNTRY CLUBBrownfields · 2500 ft
- WALGREEN DRUG STORE #6170Brownfields · 0.7 mi
- DILLONS #72 FUEL CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- WICHITA PARKVIEW CO.Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- COURTESY CLEANERS - EPA (MERGED W/ I730298)Brownfields · 0.9 mi
- DILLON STORES #0072-615Brownfields · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Sedgwick 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 Sedgwick County.
Sources Checked
across Sedgwick County
Severity Distribution
across Sedgwick County
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Sedgwick 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 Sedgwick County average
Your land is one point inside Sedgwick County
Everything above resolves to Sedgwick County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 638K 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 Sedgwick County Average
Sedgwick County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Sedgwick County
- ●One soil character for all of Sedgwick County
- ●Frost dates read at Sedgwick County's scale: Mar 29 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Sedgwick County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Sedgwick County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Sedgwick County, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Sedgwick County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Sedgwick County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Sedgwick County average
How we know this about Sedgwick 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 Sedgwick County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Sedgwick County
When does frost risk typically end in Sedgwick County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Sedgwick County typically lands around Mar 29, 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 19.
How long is the growing season in Sedgwick County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Sedgwick County sees about 226 frost-free days — roughly Mar 29 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 19 to Oct 27, about 191 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Sedgwick County?
The federal record around Sedgwick County runs heavier than most — 3,135 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,213), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
Everything above is measured at Sedgwick County's scale — its 7a band and its 226-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Sedgwick 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 Sedgwick County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Sedgwick County's own scale — its own ~226-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 3,135 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Sedgwick County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Sedgwick County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~226-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Sedgwick CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 3,135 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Sedgwick County's boundary and the 638,080 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~226-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Sedgwick County sitting wholly inside the Central Great PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Sedgwick County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Sedgwick 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 Sedgwick County — the ~226 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 Sedgwick County's 638,080 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 3,135 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 Sedgwick Countyread your own land →