Crow Wing County, in Minnesota, sits in USDA hardiness zone 4a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, cranberry, turkish rocket, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Crow Wing County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Crow Wing 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 Crow Wing County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Crow Wing County — the short answer
Crow Wing County, Minnesota: USDA zone 4a, about 164 days between hard freezes, across 639K acres.
- USDA zone
- 4a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~164
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 639K 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 4a is Crow Wing County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Crow Wing County's 164-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Crow Wing County
Across a year, Crow Wing County accumulates about 1,920 growing degree days above 50°F, about 345 fewer than the middle Minnesota county — ahead of 22 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 Crow Wing County
Across Crow Wing County, the ground is predominantly Entisols, where Brainerd, Seelyeville, and Zimmerman are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately well drained with a loamy sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.1–5.5, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A soils.
Soil order
Entisols
Drainage
Moderately well drained
Prime farmland
9%
Hydric soils
28%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Crow Wing County
The USDA soil survey maps 23% of Crow Wing County as moderately well drained — but another 62% drains differently: 20% somewhat excessively drained, 20% very poorly drained.
Brainerd is the most extensive named soil at 10% of mapped acres, then Seelyeville (7%) and Zimmerman (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 Crow Wing County
Each reading below is measured for Crow Wing 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 Crow Wing County are moderately well drained, in hydrologic group A — roughly the middle of the drainage range.
This is close to the middle most vegetables prefer: it holds enough water to carry a crop between rains without staying waterlogged. The catch is that a wet spring or a low corner can still tip it soggy.
Plant on the site as-is for most crops, but keep the lowest, slowest-draining beds for moisture-tolerant plantings.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Crow Wing County runs about pH 5.1–5.5, 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
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 28% of Crow Wing 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
MeasuredCrow Wing County runs about 164 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 Crow Wing County is in
Crow Wing County sits in the Northern Lakes and Forests — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northern Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Crow Wing County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Crow Wing County's own USDA zone 4a and its own 164-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 Crow Wing 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 Apr 2; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 30 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 11 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Even past midsummer there is room for a true fall garden here, and garlic planted near the close carries the momentum into next year.
Documented around Crow Wing County
- Japanese beetle3 documented records
- monarch butterfly33 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Crow Wing County
USGS estimates 10,048 lb of Glyphosate on Crow Wing County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acetochlor (5,466 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (3,465 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 Crow Wing County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Crow Wing County — 881 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Crow Wing 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 Crow Wing County
Closest first, across Crow Wing County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Lake Hubert StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- 474760Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- 046N29W18DCB 01Nitrate · 2.2 mi
- 047N29W32DDB 01Nitrate · 2.4 mi
- GREAT RIVER ENERGY - RIVERTON SUBSTATIONBrownfields · 2.4 mi
- 589583Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- Ossipee StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- Roachs Lawn & MarineUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- Yeager Bus ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- Merrifield Farm/ebo Farms IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- Caribou CanvasUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- Sunset Bay Resort & CampgroundUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Crow Wing 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 Crow Wing County.
Sources Checked
across Crow Wing County
Severity Distribution
across Crow Wing County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Crow Wing County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 352 sites across Crow Wing County. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Crow Wing 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 Crow Wing County average
Your land is one point inside Crow Wing County
Everything above resolves to Crow Wing County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 639K 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 Crow Wing County Average
Crow Wing County Average
- ●USDA Zones 4a, averaged across Crow Wing County
- ●One soil character for all of Crow Wing County
- ●Frost dates read at Crow Wing County's scale: Apr 30 to Oct 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Crow Wing County's 4a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Crow Wing County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Crow Wing County, Minnesota — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Crow Wing County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Crow Wing County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Crow Wing County average
How we know this about Crow Wing 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 Crow Wing County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Crow Wing County
When does frost risk typically end in Crow Wing County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Crow Wing County typically lands around Apr 30, 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 21.
How long is the growing season in Crow Wing County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Crow Wing County sees about 164 frost-free days — roughly Apr 30 through Oct 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 21 to Sep 27, about 129 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Crow Wing County?
The federal record around Crow Wing County is a meaningful one — 881 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (352), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 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 Crow Wing County's scale — its 4a band and its 164-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Crow Wing 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 Crow Wing County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Crow Wing County's own scale — its own ~164-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 881 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Crow Wing County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 4aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Crow Wing County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~164-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Crow Wing CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 881 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Crow Wing County's boundary and the 639,008 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 4a and a ~164-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Crow Wing County sitting wholly inside the Northern Lakes and ForestsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Crow Wing County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Crow Wing 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 Crow Wing County — the ~164 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 Crow Wing County's 639,008 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 881 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 Crow Wing Countyread your own land →