Dakota County, in Minnesota, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Expect cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Dakota 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
Dakota County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Dakota 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 Dakota County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Dakota County — the short answer
Dakota County, Minnesota: USDA zone 5a, about 189 days between hard freezes, across 360K acres.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~189
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 360K 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 5a is Dakota County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Dakota County's 189-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Dakota County
Across a year, Dakota County accumulates about 2,470 growing degree days above 50°F, about 205 more than the middle Minnesota county — ahead of 81 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 Dakota County
Across Dakota County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Waukegan, Wadena, and Kingsley are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.1–6.5, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
46%
Hydric soils
15%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Dakota County
The USDA soil survey maps 55% of Dakota County as well drained — but another 35% drains differently: 9% poorly drained, 9% excessively drained.
Waukegan is the most extensive named soil at 12% of mapped acres, then Wadena (9%) and Kingsley (8%).
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 Dakota County
Each reading below is measured for Dakota 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 Dakota County are well drained, in hydrologic group B — 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 Dakota County runs about pH 6.1–6.5, 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
Season length
MeasuredDakota County runs about 189 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
MeasuredDakota County sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a.
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 Dakota County is in
Dakota County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Western Corn Belt Plains (63%) and North Central Hardwood Forests (34%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Dakota County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Dakota County's own USDA zone 5a and its own 189-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 Dakota 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 18; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 15 (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. As the window narrows, the plantings just get faster — fall brassicas, then greens, then garlic to finish.
Documented around Dakota County
- Japanese beetle10 documented records
- monarch butterfly3,764 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Dakota County
USGS estimates 137,845 lb of Glyphosate on Dakota County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acetochlor (79,974 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (64,060 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 Dakota County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Dakota County — 3,608 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 9 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Dakota 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 Dakota County
Closest first, across Dakota County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Church Of Saint PeterUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- Statistical Products CorpUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- 114N19W23ADC DAVID KAMENNitrate · 1500 ft
- FRMGTN-2S 114N18W 01Nitrate · 2500 ft
- FRMGTN-2D 114N18W 01 0000227972Nitrate · 2500 ft
- PDCJ QW 114N19W25BBBBBD01 0000198342Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- FRMGTN-4D 114N18W 01Nitrate · 1.5 mi
- FRMGTN-4S 114N18W 01Nitrate · 1.5 mi
- PDCJ QW 114N18W30BCCCCB01 0000196606Nitrate · 1.9 mi
- PDCJ QW 114N18W30AAACCC01 0000236603Nitrate · 2.4 mi
- PDCJ QW 114N18W30AADBCB01 0000101038Nitrate · 2.4 mi
- INTERSTATE BATTERY TWIN CITIEBrownfields · 2.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Dakota 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 Dakota County.
Severity Distribution
across Dakota County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Dakota County, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 2,532 sites across Dakota County. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Dakota 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 Dakota County average
Your land is one point inside Dakota County
Everything above resolves to Dakota County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 360K 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 Dakota County Average
Dakota County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Dakota County
- ●One soil character for all of Dakota County
- ●Frost dates read at Dakota County's scale: Apr 15 to Oct 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Dakota County's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Dakota County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Dakota County, Minnesota — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Dakota County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Dakota County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Dakota County average
How we know this about Dakota 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 Dakota County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Dakota County
When does frost risk typically end in Dakota County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Dakota County typically lands around Apr 15, 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 6.
How long is the growing season in Dakota County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Dakota County sees about 189 frost-free days — roughly Apr 15 through Oct 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 6 to Oct 7, about 154 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Dakota County?
The federal record around Dakota County runs heavier than most — 3,608 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (2,532), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Dakota County's scale — its 5a band and its 189-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Dakota 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 Dakota County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Dakota County's own scale — its own ~189-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 3,608 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Dakota County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Dakota County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~189-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Dakota CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 3,608 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Dakota County's boundary and the 360,037 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~189-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Dakota County spans, Western Corn Belt Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Dakota County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Dakota 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 Dakota County — the ~189 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 Dakota County's 360,037 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 3,608 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 Dakota Countyread your own land →