Anoka County, in Minnesota, sits in USDA hardiness zone 4b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, cranberry, turkish rocket, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Anoka County lies within Twin Cities Metro — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Anoka County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Anoka 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 Anoka County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Anoka County — the short answer
Anoka County, Minnesota: USDA zone 4b, about 181 days between hard freezes, across 270K acres.
- USDA zone
- 4b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~181
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 270K 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 4b is Anoka County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Anoka County's 181-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Anoka County
Across a year, Anoka County accumulates about 2,372 growing degree days above 50°F, about 107 more than the middle Minnesota county — ahead of 59 of Minnesota’s 87 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 Anoka County
Across Anoka County, the ground is predominantly Entisols, where Zimmerman, Rifle, and Isanti are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally very poorly drained with a fine sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.8–6.0, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A/D soils.
Soil order
Entisols
Drainage
Very poorly drained
Prime farmland
4%
Hydric soils
40%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Anoka County
The USDA soil survey maps 35% of Anoka County as very poorly drained — but another 56% drains differently: 21% somewhat excessively drained, 15% excessively drained.
Zimmerman is the most extensive named soil at 23% of mapped acres, then Rifle (15%) and Isanti (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 Anoka County
Each reading below is measured for Anoka 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 Anoka County are very poorly drained, in hydrologic group A/D — ground that sheds water slowly.
Beds can stay saturated for days after heavy rain, and the roots of most vegetables, berries, and fruit trees suffocate or rot in soil that never drains.
Raised beds or mounded rows lift roots above the wet zone; choose water-tolerant crops for the lowest spots.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Anoka County runs about pH 5.8–6.0, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredAnoka County runs about 181 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
MeasuredAnoka County sits in USDA hardiness zone 4b.
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 Anoka County is in
Anoka County sits in the North Central Hardwood Forests — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Anoka County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Anoka County's own USDA zone 4b and its own 181-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 Minnesota profile.
Is it too late to plant in Anoka 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 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 20 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 18 — 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 Anoka County
- Japanese beetle10 documented records
- monarch butterfly740 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Anoka County
USGS estimates 8,620 lb of Glyphosate on Anoka County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acetochlor (4,690 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (3,907 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 Anoka County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Anoka County — 3,310 documented sites across 6 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.
Anoka 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 Anoka County
Closest first, across Anoka County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ENGINES BY ALAN BOHLMAN - HAMBrownfields · 2200 ft
- AMERICAN WOOKMARKToxics Release Inventory · 2600 ft
- CROSSROAD CONSTRUCTION INCBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- LANDMARK FINISHINGBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- DIAMOND AUTO COLLISIONBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- CEDAR CREEK HOMES INCBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- MIDSTATE RADIATOR & MUFFLERBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- IVES DESIGNBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- THE AUTOMOTIVE DEPOTBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- TOBIN'S AUTO PARTSBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- RICHIES AUTOMOTIVE PLUSBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- CROSSTOWN SIGN INC - ABERDEENBrownfields · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Anoka 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 Anoka County.
Sources Checked
across Anoka County
Severity Distribution
across Anoka County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Anoka County, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 2,154 sites across Anoka County. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in Anoka 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 Anoka County average
Your land is one point inside Anoka County
Everything above resolves to Anoka County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 270K 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 Anoka County Average
Anoka County Average
- ●USDA Zones 4b, averaged across Anoka County
- ●One soil character for all of Anoka County
- ●Frost dates read at Anoka County's scale: Apr 20 to Oct 18
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Anoka County's 4b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Anoka County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Anoka County, Minnesota — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Anoka County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Anoka County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Anoka County average
How we know this about Anoka 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 Anoka County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Anoka County
When does frost risk typically end in Anoka County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Anoka County typically lands around Apr 20, 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 11.
How long is the growing season in Anoka County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Anoka County sees about 181 frost-free days — roughly Apr 20 through Oct 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 11 to Oct 4, about 146 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Anoka County?
The federal record around Anoka County runs heavier than most — 3,310 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (2,154), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.4 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 Anoka County's scale — its 4b band and its 181-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Anoka 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 Minnesota's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Anoka County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Anoka County's own scale — its own ~181-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 3,310 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Anoka County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 4bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Anoka County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~181-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Anoka CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 3,310 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 0.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Anoka County's boundary and the 270,063 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 4b and a ~181-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Anoka County sitting wholly inside the North Central Hardwood ForestsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Anoka County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Anoka County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Minnesota grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Minnesota
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Anoka County — the ~181 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 Anoka County's 270,063 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 3,310 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 Anoka Countyread your own land →