Wichita County, in Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Wichita 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
Wichita County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Wichita 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 Wichita County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Wichita County — the short answer
Wichita County, Kansas: USDA zone 6a, about 187 days between hard freezes, across 460K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~187
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 460K 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 Wichita County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Wichita County's 187-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Wichita County
Across a year, Wichita County accumulates about 3,240 growing degree days above 50°F, about 593 fewer than the middle Kansas county — ahead of 8 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 Wichita County
Across Wichita County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Richfield, Ulysses, and Buffalo Park 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
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Wichita County
The USDA soil survey maps 99% of Wichita County as well drained — but another 1% drains differently: 1% poorly drained.
Richfield is the most extensive named soil at 55% of mapped acres, then Ulysses (27%) and Buffalo Park (4%).
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 Wichita County
Each reading below is measured for Wichita 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 Wichita 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 Wichita 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
MeasuredWichita County runs about 187 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
MeasuredWichita 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 Wichita County is in
Wichita 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 Wichita County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Wichita County's own USDA zone 6a and its own 187-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 Wichita 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 20; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 17 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 21 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
Documented around Wichita County
- monarch butterfly39 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Wichita County
USGS estimates 299,137 lb of Atrazine on Wichita County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (257,594 lb) and Acetochlor (141,460 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 Wichita County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Wichita County — 228 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
There's a meaningful federal record across Wichita 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 Wichita County
Closest first, across Wichita County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HIGH PLAINS ENERGY LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- HAYES SALES & SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- 18S 37W 13DDC 01Nitrate · 1100 ft
- AMERICAN IMPLEMENT INCBrownfields · 1500 ft
- CIRCLE K STORES, INC. 2721611Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- KANSAS DEPT OF TRANSPORTATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- 18S 37W 24ADD 01Nitrate · 2600 ft
- CONCO INCBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- ASCENSION VIA CHRISTI HOSPITALS WICHITA INCBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- COLEMAN CO. (FACTORIES A & B)Brownfields · 0.5 mi
- HUNTER HEALTH COMMUNITY PHARMACYBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- COLEMAN CO. (FACTORIES A & B)Toxics Release Inventory · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Wichita 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 Wichita County.
Total Sites
228
across Wichita County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Wichita County
Severity Distribution
across Wichita County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Wichita County, two things run higher than the national average across Wichita County — CAFO (12 sites) and Nitrate (172 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Wichita 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 Wichita County average
Your land is one point inside Wichita County
Everything above resolves to Wichita County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 460K 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 Wichita County Average
Wichita County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Wichita County
- ●One soil character for all of Wichita County
- ●Frost dates read at Wichita County's scale: Apr 17 to Oct 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Wichita County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Wichita County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Wichita County, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Wichita County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Wichita County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Wichita County average
How we know this about Wichita 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 Wichita County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Wichita County
When does frost risk typically end in Wichita County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Wichita County typically lands around Apr 17, 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 8.
How long is the growing season in Wichita County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Wichita County sees about 187 frost-free days — roughly Apr 17 through Oct 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 8 to Oct 7, about 152 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Wichita County?
The federal record around Wichita County is a meaningful one — 228 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (172), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Wichita County's scale — its 6a band and its 187-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Wichita 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 Wichita County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Wichita County's own scale — its own ~187-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 228 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Wichita County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Wichita County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~187-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Wichita CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 228 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
- Wichita County's boundary and the 459,882 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~187-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Wichita County sitting wholly inside the High PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Wichita County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Wichita 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 Wichita County — the ~187 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 Wichita County's 459,882 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 228 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 Wichita Countyread your own land →