Stanton County, in Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Stanton County lies within the High Plains — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Stanton County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Stanton 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 Stanton County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Stanton County — the short answer
Stanton County, Kansas: USDA zone 6b, about 201 days between hard freezes, across 435K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~201
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 435K 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 Stanton County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Stanton County's 201-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Stanton County
Across a year, Stanton County accumulates about 3,666 growing degree days above 50°F, about 167 fewer than the middle Kansas county — ahead of 36 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 Stanton County
Across Stanton County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Richfield, Ulysses, and Satanta are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.2–7.5, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Stanton County
The USDA soil survey maps 98% of Stanton County as well drained — but another 2% drains differently: 1% somewhat excessively drained, 1% excessively drained.
Richfield is the most extensive named soil at 44% of mapped acres, then Ulysses (33%) and Satanta (6%).
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 Stanton County
Each reading below is measured for Stanton 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 Stanton 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 Stanton County runs about pH 7.2–7.5, 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
MeasuredStanton County runs about 201 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
MeasuredStanton 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 Stanton County is in
Stanton County sits in the High Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Stanton County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Stanton County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 201-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 Stanton County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 28 — 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.
What gets applied to farmland in Stanton County
USGS estimates 364,332 lb of Glyphosate on Stanton County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (245,215 lb) and Acetochlor (158,882 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 Stanton County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Stanton County — 174 documented sites across 4 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 11 concentrated animal feeding operations. Large-scale animal operations that can contaminate soil and groundwater with nitrates and pathogens.
The federal record across Stanton 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 Stanton County
Closest first, across Stanton County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- STANTON CO IMPLEMENT INCBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- TEETER IRRIGATION INCBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- STANTON CO. ROAD & BRIDGE DEPTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- PRAIRIE WIND HEIFER DEVELOPMENT, LLCCAFO · 1.7 mi
- TEETER IRRIGATION INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- TARBET CONSTR CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- SKYLAND GRAIN LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- GERARD AIRCRAFT INCBrownfields · 1.9 mi
- 28S 41W 36DCB 01Nitrate · 2.0 mi
- 28S 41W 36DCB 02Nitrate · 2.0 mi
- JOHNSON COOP GRAIN COUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- WARTMAN SUPPLYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Stanton 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 Stanton County.
Total Sites
174
across Stanton County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
11 concentrated animal feeding operations
Sources Checked
across Stanton County
Severity Distribution
across Stanton County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Stanton County, two things run higher than the national average across Stanton County — CAFO (11 sites) and Nitrate (132 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Stanton 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 Stanton County average
Your land is one point inside Stanton County
Everything above resolves to Stanton County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 435K 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 Stanton County Average
Stanton County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Stanton County
- ●One soil character for all of Stanton County
- ●Frost dates read at Stanton County's scale: Apr 10 to Oct 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Stanton County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Stanton County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Stanton County, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Stanton County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Stanton County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Stanton County average
How we know this about Stanton 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 Stanton County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Stanton County
When does frost risk typically end in Stanton County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Stanton County typically lands around Apr 10, 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 1.
How long is the growing season in Stanton County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Stanton County sees about 201 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Oct 14, about 166 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Stanton County?
The federal record around Stanton County shows 174 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (132), 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 Stanton County's scale — its 6b band and its 201-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Stanton 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 Stanton County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Stanton County's own scale — its own ~201-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 174 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Stanton County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Stanton County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~201-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Stanton CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 174 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 1.6 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Stanton County's boundary and the 435,425 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~201-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Stanton County sitting wholly inside the High PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Stanton 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 Stanton County — the ~201 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 Stanton County's 435,425 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 174 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 Stanton Countyread your own land →