Carver County, in Minnesota, sits in USDA hardiness zone 4b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Growers here do well with cabbage, cranberry, turkish rocket, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Carver 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
Carver County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Carver 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 Carver County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Carver County — the short answer
Carver County, Minnesota: USDA zone 4b, about 186 days between hard freezes, across 226K acres.
- USDA zone
- 4b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~186
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 226K 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 Carver County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Carver County's 186-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Carver County
Across a year, Carver County accumulates about 2,460 growing degree days above 50°F, about 195 more than the middle Minnesota county — ahead of 78 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 Carver County
Across Carver County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Lester, Le Sueur, and Cordova are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.2–6.7, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C/D soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
34%
Hydric soils
39%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Carver County
The USDA soil survey maps 25% of Carver County as well drained — but another 70% drains differently: 22% somewhat poorly drained, 21% poorly drained.
Lester is the most extensive named soil at 26% of mapped acres, then Le Sueur (15%) and Cordova (10%).
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 Carver County
Each reading below is measured for Carver 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 Carver County are well drained, in hydrologic group C/D — 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 Carver County runs about pH 6.2–6.7, 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
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 39% of Carver County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredCarver County runs about 186 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
The kind of country Carver County is in
Carver 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 Carver County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Carver County's own USDA zone 4b and its own 186-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 Carver 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 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 18 (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 Carver County
- Japanese beetle4 documented records
- monarch butterfly1,063 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Carver County
USGS estimates 69,163 lb of Glyphosate on Carver County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acetochlor (46,453 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (8,615 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 Carver County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Carver County — 1,015 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 33 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
There's a meaningful federal record across Carver 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 Carver County
Closest first, across Carver County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- OSSIG BRIANBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- SUPERIOR LAWN & LANSCAPEBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- 1MICRO LLCBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- TECHNICAL MARKETING CO INCBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- SHOREWOOD ENGINEERING INCBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- PHILP FAMILY DENTISTRYBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- C-D PRODUCTSBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- MANUS PRODUCTS INCBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- MANUS PRODUCTS INCToxics Release Inventory · 1.0 mi
- CHASKA MACHINE & TOOL INCBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- VALLEY SALES OF WACONIABrownfields · 1.0 mi
- WIDMER REPAIR LLCBrownfields · 1.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Carver 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 Carver County.
Total Sites
1,015
across Carver County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
33 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Carver County
Severity Distribution
across Carver County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Carver County, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 640 sites across Carver 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 Carver 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 Carver County average
Your land is one point inside Carver County
Everything above resolves to Carver County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 226K 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 Carver County Average
Carver County Average
- ●USDA Zones 4b, averaged across Carver County
- ●One soil character for all of Carver County
- ●Frost dates read at Carver County's scale: Apr 18 to Oct 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Carver County's 4b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Carver County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Carver County, Minnesota — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Carver County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Carver County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Carver County average
How we know this about Carver 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 Carver County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Carver County
When does frost risk typically end in Carver County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Carver County typically lands around Apr 18, 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 9.
How long is the growing season in Carver County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Carver County sees about 186 frost-free days — roughly Apr 18 through Oct 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 9 to Oct 7, about 151 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Carver County?
The federal record around Carver County is a meaningful one — 1,015 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (640), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.5 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 Carver County's scale — its 4b band and its 186-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Carver 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 Carver County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Carver County's own scale — its own ~186-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 1,015 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Carver County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 4bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Carver County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~186-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Carver CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 1,015 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Carver County's boundary and the 226,482 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 4b and a ~186-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Carver County sitting wholly inside the North Central Hardwood ForestsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Carver County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Carver 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 Carver County — the ~186 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 Carver County's 226,482 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 1,015 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 Carver Countyread your own land →