Minnesota spans USDA hardiness zones 3a-5a, with a growing season of about 174 frost-free days — a season that fits spring and fall plantings of cool-weather crops around a solid warm-season core.
The climate hand here is 19-34 inches of annual rainfall, a median of roughly 1,920 growing-degree days (base 50°F), and about 2,500 winter chill hours for tree fruit — the numbers that decide what ripens comfortably and what runs out of runway. Underfoot it's mostly prairie loam, clay, sandy outwash, and peat — and how those drain decides more about crop success than almost anything else. Growing in Minnesota really means growing in one of its distinct regions — Driftless Area, Red River Valley, and Twin Cities Metro — each with its own zone band and frost rhythm. Growers here do well with honeycrisp apple, wild rice, tomato, and grape (marquette) — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Grounded inUSDA PHZM•NOAA Climate Normals•USDA NRCS SSURGO•GDD (PRISM 1991-2020 normals)•Chill hours (PRISM 1991-2020 normals)•USDA hardiness sub-region map•EPA FRS•USDA PLANTS•Growable Ground suitability scoring
Minnesota spans zones 3a-5a, but your yard sits in exactly one — and slope, tree cover, and low spots nudge it further. 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 Minnesota — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Distinct growing regions within Minnesota — each has its own zones, soils, and signature crops.
Minnesota: USDA zones 3a-5a, 137–199 frost-free days depending on the county, 87 counties.
The middle half of this state’s counties. Tender transplants usually wait 2–3 weeks past the last hard freeze. The shortest-season figure is Minnesota's own county record — Lake County's measured 28°F normal, not a modeled floor.
Minnesota does not have one growing season. Across all 909 of its towns that carry their own 30-year record, the shortest measured season is Aurora's at 116 days and the longest is La Crescent's at 202 — an 86-day spread inside one state.
Neither end is a lone reading — another 3 towns measure within 10 days of Aurora and 74 sit within 10 days of La Crescent. These are real pockets, so the number to plant against is your own town's, not the state average.
NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS (1991–2020), 30-year daily minimum record
Zone 3a-5a is Minnesota's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Minnesota's 174-day season, see what your own ground reads.
One answer for Minnesota averages 87 counties whose growing seasons are 62 days apart — from 137 frost-free days in Lake County to 199 in Ramsey County. That is the same state, measured the same way, in the same years. Which end of it your county sits nearer decides what finishes before the first hard freeze.
The middle half of 87 counties runs 162–181 days, with a median of 174 days — a 62-day span end to end.
Measured across 87 counties, each carrying its own 28°F normal. NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020, county 28°F killing freeze. A county with no record of its own is absent from the range rather than counted as zero — nothing here is interpolated to the state. Your own site sits somewhere inside this range; a parcel report resolves where.
The middle half of Minnesota runs 162–181 frost-free days, and 37 of its 87 counties sit outside that — 20 on the short side, 17 on the long. A statewide planting date describes the middle well and the ends poorly, which is worth knowing before you follow one.
Under 162 frost-free days
20 counties
3 of 20 shown
The end of the state that sets the planting calendar — start seed indoors here and the season stretches to meet the crop.
162–181 frost-free days
50 counties
0 of 50 shown
The middle half of the state, and the part a single statewide date describes well.
Over 181 frost-free days
17 counties
3 of 17 shown
Long enough for a second succession of a quick crop after the first comes out.
Each county is placed by its own 28°F frost-free normal (NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020, county 28°F killing freeze), the same figure its own guide page publishes. Elevation, slope and cold-air drainage move a yard within its county as well — which is the part only your address resolves.
The soil types that dominate Minnesota — how each drains decides more about crop success than almost anything else. Tap any soil to learn what it is and how to work with it. Each photo is a representative profile of that soil type; the named series is where it was documented, which is often another state.
Drainage
Good. The crumb structure that prairie roots built lets water in and holds it like a sponge, releasing it steadily through the season.
What thrives
This is some of the most productive crop ground on Earth — corn, beans, squash, brassicas, and nearly any vegetable you plant. Prairie natives like coneflower and big bluestem are, unsurprisingly, right at home.
Drainage
Slow. Water enters clay reluctantly and leaves it the same way, so wet springs keep it cold and unworkable longer than lighter soils.
What thrives
Once established, heavy feeders prosper — brassicas, beans, corn, and many fruit trees ride clay’s nutrient supply and summer moisture reserve. Daylilies, roses, and prairie perennials handle it without complaint.
Sand and gravel sorted and dropped by glacial meltwater rivers — the glacier ground the rock, and the rushing water sorted it by size as the ice retreated. Outwash plains are flat, stone-free at the surface, and deeply drained.
Drainage
Very fast, often to considerable depth — outwash rarely holds a puddle.
What thrives
Potatoes are the classic outwash crop, along with carrots, asparagus, and bush fruits. Pines and oaks dominate the native cover for the same reason: they handle the droughtiness.
Drainage
Saturated by default — peat forms precisely because water excludes the oxygen decomposition needs. Drained peat holds moisture beautifully but can stay cold late into spring.
What thrives
Acid-lovers are at home: blueberries and cranberries are the classic peatland crops, with rhododendrons, azaleas, and bog natives alongside.
Soil data: USDA NRCS SSURGO · Soil types explained
Plants well-suited to Minnesota's climate, soils, and growing season — each links to its full growing profile.
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Across Minnesota, cool-season planting typically opens about four weeks before the local last hard freeze — county medians put that freeze near Apr 21, with the middle half of counties between Apr 19 and Apr 30 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals). Tender transplants wait two to three weeks past it, and fall planting counts back from first freezes mostly between Oct 10 and Oct 17 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Late in the year the fall bench takes over — quick greens, radishes, and garlic that repays you next summer.
The plants Minnesota put its name on — cultural emblems, not growing recommendations.
Pink and white lady's slipper
Cypripedium reginae
Designated 1902.
Pinus resinosa
Designated 1953. In our plant library — see its full growing profile.
Honeycrisp apple
Designated 2006.
Plants the USDA PLANTS Database documents as native and present in Minnesota — a real per-state range, not just a zone match. Ordered by how closely each plant’s published hardiness range matches Minnesota’s zones 3a-5a, so this is a shortlist by climate fit, not a ranking of which plants matter most here. Presence is statewide, so a plant may still be uncommon in your specific county; your state’s Cooperative Extension or a native-plant society is the local authority.
US-native plants whose hardiness range overlaps Minnesota’s USDA zones 3a-5a but which USDA PLANTS doesn’t map to a single state range here. Zone overlap is a starting filter, not a range map.
What an experienced grower plans around here — each one has a move.
Extreme cold (zone 3a: -40F) limits many species
Plant to zone 3 realities and the garden thrives — the hardy-plant palette here is deeper than most catalogs suggest.
Short growing season (100-140 frost-free days)
Start transplants indoors and add a cold frame — the standard Minnesota moves that stretch a short season into a full one.
Heavy clay soils in the Red River Valley
Valley clay grows world-class crops once drainage is handled — raised beds do it instantly, compost does it permanently.
For cultivar selection, pest pressure, and planting-time guidance specific to Minnesota, the University of Minnesota Extension is the authoritative local source.
Safe to Grow Here?What the federal record shows across Minnesota — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Minnesota — 59,092 documented sites across 8 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 172 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Minnesota 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.
Severity Distribution
across Minnesota
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Minnesota, two things run higher than the national average across Minnesota — CAFO (1,010 sites) and Brownfields (29,697 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.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
Everything above resolves to Minnesota as a whole — a state whose own counties record seasons 62 days apart, and hardiness across zones 3a-5a. Your parcel sits at one point in that range, not in the middle of it. 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 state 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 statewide average.
State averages sketch the shape. Your soil, sun exposure, drainage, and microclimate decide what actually takes. Pull a site-specific report for your exact parcel.
Enter your address. We read your soil, sun, drainage, and frost dates, then score 1,086 plants against the real conditions on your land.
Three things about your lot that Minnesota averages can't show:
We read public map data around Minnesota — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Minnesota average
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read per county and aggregated to the state band; the growing season from NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS 1991–2020 28°F normals, read at each county’s own record; rainfall from NOAA Climate Normals; soils from USDA NRCS SSURGO; boundaries from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination record from the federal sources named in that beat above. Where a county carries no record of its own, it is absent from the figure rather than filled in.
Minnesota spans USDA hardiness zones 3a-5a — which is to say winter's coldest night runs from about −40°F to −15°F depending where in Minnesota you are, averaged over 1991–2020 (USDA PHZM 2023).
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Across Minnesota, cool-season planting typically opens about four weeks before the local last hard freeze — county medians put that freeze near Apr 21, with the middle half of counties between Apr 19 and Apr 30 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals). Tender transplants wait two to three weeks past it, and fall planting counts back from first freezes mostly between Oct 10 and Oct 17 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Late in the year the fall bench takes over — quick greens, radishes, and garlic that repays you next summer.
Across Minnesota, the middle half of counties see their last hard freeze (28°F) between about Apr 19 and Apr 30, with a county median near Apr 21 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals). 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 12.
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, growing seasons across Minnesota's counties mostly run about 163 to 181 days, with a county median near 174 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals). Tender crops get a somewhat shorter practical window, since lighter frosts reach a few weeks past the hard-freeze dates on both ends.
Minnesota's zones 3a-5a support a wide range — strong performers include Honeycrisp Apple, Wild Rice, Tomato, Grape (Marquette), and Red Pine. What actually takes on any one site comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage, and we score each plant against the real conditions at your address.
Officially, Minnesota spans USDA zones 3a-5a (USDA PHZM 2023) — but a zone is a 30-year average of winter's coldest night across an area, and it can't see any one yard. A south-facing slope, a tree line, or a low frost pocket can shift a single site by half a zone either way, which is why neighboring gardeners often quote different numbers. We read the conditions at your exact address — soil, sun, slope, and frost — and score 1,086 plants against what's actually there.
The federal record across Minnesota runs heavier than most — 59,092 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (29,697) — 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.
Start with three facts. Minnesota spans USDA zones 3a-5a, which sets what survives winter; last hard freezes range from about Apr 19 to Apr 30 across its counties (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and 59,092 documented sites sit on the federal record here, so a soil test before food beds is the smart first step. From there, matching plants to your actual soil and sun is the fun part.
Everything above is measured at Minnesota's scale — its 3a-5a band and its 174-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Minnesota's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
6 of the readings below were taken at Minnesota's own scale — the full zone 3a-5a span inside its borders, the 4 soil types that dominate its ground and 59,092 documented sites on its federal record; anything it cannot resolve at this scale is named below.
Measured here
What this page can’t tell you
Explore growing conditions by county — each has its own zone range and land area.
Explore growing conditions by city or town in Minnesota.
Minnesota shares its dominant growing region with these states — a useful comparison if you're weighing where a crop will behave the same way.
