Hennepin 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.
Growers here do well with cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Hennepin 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
Hennepin County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Hennepin 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 Hennepin County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Hennepin County — the short answer
Hennepin County, Minnesota: USDA zone 5a, about 195 days between hard freezes, across 355K acres.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~195
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 355K 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 Hennepin County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Hennepin County's 195-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Hennepin County
Across a year, Hennepin County accumulates about 2,537 growing degree days above 50°F, about 272 more than the middle Minnesota county — ahead of 85 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 Hennepin County
Across Hennepin County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Lester, Angus, and Hamel are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.5–6.6, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
14%
Hydric soils
29%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Hennepin County
The USDA soil survey maps 31% of Hennepin County as well drained — but another 38% drains differently: 11% very poorly drained, 8% poorly drained.
Lester is the most extensive named soil at 20% of mapped acres, then Angus (10%) and Hamel (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 Hennepin County
Each reading below is measured for Hennepin 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 Hennepin County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — 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 Hennepin County runs about pH 6.5–6.6, 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 29% of Hennepin 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
MeasuredHennepin County runs about 195 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 Hennepin County is in
Hennepin 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 Hennepin County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Hennepin County's own USDA zone 5a and its own 195-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 Hennepin County?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 16; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 25 — 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 Hennepin County
- Japanese beetle48 documented records
- monarch butterfly5,696 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Hennepin County
USGS estimates 16,683 lb of Glyphosate on Hennepin County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acetochlor (8,515 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (5,501 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 Hennepin County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Hennepin County — 10,979 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 44 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Hennepin 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 Hennepin County
Closest first, across Hennepin County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- GENTRA SYSTEMS INCBrownfields · 500 ft
- CRANE ENGINEERINGBrownfields · 500 ft
- VIXAR INCBrownfields · 500 ft
- UNITED OPERATIONS INCBrownfields · 500 ft
- PRODUCTIVITY INCBrownfields · 600 ft
- PROMED MOLDED PRODUCTS - 23RD AVEBrownfields · 900 ft
- PRODESIGN INCBrownfields · 950 ft
- DAILY PRINTINGBrownfields · 1000 ft
- Smith Bay Marina IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- City Of OronoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- Bloomington Corporate CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- GARLOCK EQUIPMENT COBrownfields · 1200 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Hennepin 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 Hennepin County.
Sources Checked
across Hennepin County
Severity Distribution
across Hennepin County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Hennepin County, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 8,082 sites across Hennepin 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 Hennepin 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 Hennepin County average
Your land is one point inside Hennepin County
Everything above resolves to Hennepin County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 355K 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 Hennepin County Average
Hennepin County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Hennepin County
- ●One soil character for all of Hennepin County
- ●Frost dates read at Hennepin County's scale: Apr 13 to Oct 25
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Hennepin County's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Hennepin County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Hennepin County, Minnesota — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Hennepin County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Hennepin County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hennepin County average
How we know this about Hennepin 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 Hennepin County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Hennepin County
When does frost risk typically end in Hennepin County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Hennepin County typically lands around Apr 13, 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 4.
How long is the growing season in Hennepin County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Hennepin County sees about 195 frost-free days — roughly Apr 13 through Oct 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 4 to Oct 11, about 160 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Hennepin County?
The federal record around Hennepin County runs heavier than most — 10,979 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (8,082), the nearest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile 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 Hennepin County's scale — its 5a band and its 195-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Hennepin 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 Hennepin County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Hennepin County's own scale — its own ~195-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 10,979 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Hennepin County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Hennepin County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~195-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Hennepin CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 10,979 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile outFederal environmental registers
- Hennepin County's boundary and the 354,572 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~195-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Hennepin County sitting wholly inside the North Central Hardwood ForestsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Hennepin County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Hennepin 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 Hennepin County — the ~195 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 Hennepin County's 354,572 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 10,979 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 Hennepin Countyread your own land →