Freeborn County, in Minnesota, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
On paper, cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Freeborn County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Freeborn 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 Freeborn County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Freeborn County — the short answer
Freeborn County, Minnesota: USDA zone 5a, about 181 days between hard freezes, across 453K acres.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~181
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 453K 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 Freeborn County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Freeborn County's 181-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Freeborn County
Across a year, Freeborn County accumulates about 2,395 growing degree days above 50°F, about 130 more than the middle Minnesota county — ahead of 67 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 Freeborn County
Across Freeborn County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Webster, Glencoe, and Maxcreek are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a clay loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.2–6.7, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C/D soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
28%
Hydric soils
57%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Freeborn County
The USDA soil survey maps 40% of Freeborn County as poorly drained — but another 57% drains differently: 17% very poorly drained, 16% well drained.
Webster is the most extensive named soil at 15% of mapped acres, then Glencoe (6%) and Maxcreek (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 Freeborn County
Each reading below is measured for Freeborn 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 Freeborn County are poorly drained, in hydrologic group C/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 Freeborn 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
Season length
MeasuredFreeborn 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
MeasuredFreeborn 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 Freeborn County is in
Freeborn County sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Freeborn County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Freeborn County's own USDA zone 5a 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 Freeborn County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. 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 16 — 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.
Documented around Freeborn County
- monarch butterfly85 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Freeborn County
USGS estimates 273,076 lb of Glyphosate on Freeborn County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acetochlor (164,317 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (107,761 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 Freeborn County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Freeborn County — 370 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed). 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 Freeborn 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 Freeborn County
Closest first, across Freeborn County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Todds GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 350 ft
- Soo Line RailroadUnderground Storage Tanks · 350 ft
- Freeborn County GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 350 ft
- MRS GERRY'S KITCHENBrownfields · 450 ft
- ALBERT LEA HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 500 ft
- Riverland Community CollegeUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- MNSCU - RIVERLAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE ALBERT LEABrownfields · 1800 ft
- ISD 241Brownfields · 2300 ft
- CARPENTER CO - ALBERT LEABrownfields · 2500 ft
- CARPENTER CO - ALBERT LEAToxics Release Inventory · 2500 ft
- NATURAL BIOLOGICS LLCToxics Release Inventory · 2500 ft
- NATURAL BIOLOGICS LLCBrownfields · 2500 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Freeborn 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 Freeborn County.
Total Sites
370
across Freeborn County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Freeborn County
Severity Distribution
across Freeborn County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Freeborn County, two things run higher than the national average across Freeborn County — CAFO (26 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (30 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Freeborn 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 Freeborn County average
Your land is one point inside Freeborn County
Everything above resolves to Freeborn County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 453K 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 Freeborn County Average
Freeborn County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Freeborn County
- ●One soil character for all of Freeborn County
- ●Frost dates read at Freeborn County's scale: Apr 18 to Oct 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Freeborn County's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Freeborn County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Freeborn County, Minnesota — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Freeborn County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Freeborn County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Freeborn County average
How we know this about Freeborn 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 Freeborn County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Freeborn County
When does frost risk typically end in Freeborn County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Freeborn 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 Freeborn County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Freeborn County sees about 181 frost-free days — roughly Apr 18 through Oct 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 9 to Oct 2, about 146 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Freeborn County?
The federal record around Freeborn County is a meaningful one — 370 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (146), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Freeborn County's scale — its 5a band and its 181-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Freeborn 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 Freeborn County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Freeborn County's own scale — its own ~181-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 370 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Freeborn County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Freeborn 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 Freeborn CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 370 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile outFederal environmental registers
- Freeborn County's boundary and the 452,637 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~181-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Freeborn County sitting wholly inside the Western Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Freeborn County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Freeborn 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 Freeborn 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 Freeborn County's 452,637 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 370 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 Freeborn Countyread your own land →