Goodhue 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.
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.
Goodhue County lies within the Driftless Area — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Goodhue County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Goodhue 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 Goodhue County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Goodhue County — the short answer
Goodhue County, Minnesota: USDA zone 4b, about 168 days between hard freezes, across 484K acres.
- USDA zone
- 4b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~168
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 484K 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 Goodhue County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Goodhue County's 168-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Goodhue County
Across a year, Goodhue County accumulates about 2,233 growing degree days above 50°F, about 32 fewer than the middle Minnesota county — ahead of 38 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 Goodhue County
Across Goodhue County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Mt. Carroll, Hersey, and Timula are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.2–6.7, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
42%
Hydric soils
10%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Goodhue County
The USDA soil survey maps 58% of Goodhue County as well drained — but another 39% drains differently: 16% moderately well drained, 9% poorly drained.
Mt. Carroll is the most extensive named soil at 15% of mapped acres, then Hersey (12%) and Timula (7%).
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 Goodhue County
Each reading below is measured for Goodhue 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 Goodhue 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 Goodhue 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
MeasuredGoodhue County runs about 168 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
MeasuredGoodhue 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 Goodhue County is in
Goodhue County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Driftless Area (87%) and Western Corn Belt Plains (13%). 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 Goodhue County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Goodhue County's own USDA zone 4b and its own 168-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 Goodhue County?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 25 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 10 — 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 Goodhue County
- Japanese beetle2 documented records
- monarch butterfly3,739 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Goodhue County
USGS estimates 243,212 lb of Glyphosate on Goodhue County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acetochlor (135,926 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (86,250 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 Goodhue County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Goodhue County — 764 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 24 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
There's a meaningful federal record across Goodhue 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 Goodhue County
Closest first, across Goodhue County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 540393Nitrate · 2600 ft
- 194057Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- 218904Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- 111N-16W-15 CCCDCCNitrate · 1.0 mi
- 457223Nitrate · 1.2 mi
- 532079Nitrate · 1.5 mi
- BUCKS UNLIMITED DAIRYCAFO · 2.2 mi
- MULTI-SITE - BUCKS UNLIMITED DAIRYCAFO · 2.3 mi
- 506715Nitrate · 2.5 mi
- 426382Nitrate · 2.5 mi
- 162712Nitrate · 3.9 mi
- 408258Nitrate · 4.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Goodhue 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 Goodhue County.
Total Sites
764
across Goodhue County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
24 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Goodhue County
Severity Distribution
across Goodhue County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Goodhue County, two things run higher than the national average across Goodhue County — CAFO (25 sites) and Nitrate (332 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.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Goodhue 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 Goodhue County average
Your land is one point inside Goodhue County
Everything above resolves to Goodhue County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 484K 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 Goodhue County Average
Goodhue County Average
- ●USDA Zones 4b, averaged across Goodhue County
- ●One soil character for all of Goodhue County
- ●Frost dates read at Goodhue County's scale: Apr 25 to Oct 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Goodhue County's 4b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Goodhue County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Goodhue County, Minnesota — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Goodhue County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Goodhue County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Goodhue County average
How we know this about Goodhue 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 Goodhue County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Goodhue County
When does frost risk typically end in Goodhue County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Goodhue County typically lands around Apr 25, 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 16.
How long is the growing season in Goodhue County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Goodhue County sees about 168 frost-free days — roughly Apr 25 through Oct 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 16 to Sep 26, about 133 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Goodhue County?
The federal record around Goodhue County is a meaningful one — 764 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (332), the nearest Nitrate 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 Goodhue County's scale — its 4b band and its 168-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Goodhue 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 Goodhue County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Goodhue County's own scale — its own ~168-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 764 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Goodhue County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 4bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Goodhue County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~168-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Goodhue CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 764 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 0.5 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Goodhue County's boundary and the 484,314 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 4b and a ~168-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Goodhue County spans, Driftless Area the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Goodhue County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Goodhue 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 Goodhue County — the ~168 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 Goodhue County's 484,314 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 764 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 Goodhue Countyread your own land →