Nobles County, in Minnesota, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
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
Nobles County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Nobles 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 Nobles County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Nobles County — the short answer
Nobles County, Minnesota: USDA zone 5a, about 179 days between hard freezes, across 458K acres.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~179
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 458K 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 Nobles County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Nobles County's 179-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Nobles County
Across a year, Nobles County accumulates about 2,363 growing degree days above 50°F, about 98 more than the middle Minnesota county — ahead of 57 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 Nobles County
Across Nobles County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Nicollet, Webster, and Everly are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a silty 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
56%
Hydric soils
37%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Nobles County
The USDA soil survey maps 35% of Nobles County as poorly drained — but another 64% drains differently: 25% somewhat poorly drained, 19% well drained.
Nicollet is the most extensive named soil at 14% of mapped acres, then Webster (12%) and Everly (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 Nobles County
Each reading below is measured for Nobles 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 Nobles 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 Nobles 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
MeasuredNobles County runs about 179 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
MeasuredNobles 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 Nobles County is in
Nobles 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 Nobles County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Nobles County's own USDA zone 5a and its own 179-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 Nobles 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 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 20 (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.
What gets applied to farmland in Nobles County
USGS estimates 280,483 lb of Glyphosate on Nobles County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acetochlor (236,932 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (82,340 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 Nobles County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Nobles County — 399 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site. 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 Nobles 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 Nobles County
Closest first, across Nobles County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Dnr - Section Of WildlifeUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- ADAM AGGEN FARMS - SECTION 29CAFO · 1.8 mi
- 100605Nitrate · 2.9 mi
- L&b Grocery StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- COMMUNITY WIND SOUTHBrownfields · 3.2 mi
- ULBRICH'S ROD & CUSTOMBrownfields · 3.3 mi
- XCEL ENERGY NOBLES WIND FARMBrownfields · 3.4 mi
- THIER FEEDLOTS INCCAFO · 3.5 mi
- 103N40W31CCB 03 F PopkenNitrate · 3.5 mi
- 100509Nitrate · 3.6 mi
- SHINE BROS CORP OF MINNESOTABrownfields · 4.0 mi
- 102N40W07CBA 01 HerleinNitrate · 4.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Nobles 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 Nobles County.
Severity Distribution
across Nobles County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Nobles County, two things run higher than the national average across Nobles County — CAFO (62 sites) and Nitrate (120 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 Nobles 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 Nobles County average
Your land is one point inside Nobles County
Everything above resolves to Nobles County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 458K 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 Nobles County Average
Nobles County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Nobles County
- ●One soil character for all of Nobles County
- ●Frost dates read at Nobles County's scale: Apr 20 to Oct 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Nobles County's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Nobles County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Nobles County, Minnesota — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Nobles County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Nobles County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Nobles County average
How we know this about Nobles 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 Nobles County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Nobles County
When does frost risk typically end in Nobles County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Nobles County typically lands around Apr 20, 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 11.
How long is the growing season in Nobles County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Nobles County sees about 179 frost-free days — roughly Apr 20 through Oct 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 11 to Oct 2, about 144 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Nobles County?
The federal record around Nobles County is a meaningful one — 399 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (120), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Nobles County's scale — its 5a band and its 179-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Nobles 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 Nobles County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Nobles County's own scale — its own ~179-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 399 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Nobles County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Nobles County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~179-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Nobles CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 399 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Nobles County's boundary and the 457,674 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~179-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Nobles County sitting wholly inside the Western Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Nobles 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 Nobles County — the ~179 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 Nobles County's 457,674 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 399 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 Nobles Countyread your own land →