Ramsey County, in Minnesota, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Ramsey 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
Ramsey County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Ramsey 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 Ramsey County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Ramsey County — the short answer
Ramsey County, Minnesota: USDA zone 5a, about 199 days between hard freezes, across 97K acres.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~199
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 97K 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 Ramsey County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Ramsey County's 199-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Ramsey County
Across a year, Ramsey County accumulates about 2,564 growing degree days above 50°F, about 299 more than the middle Minnesota county — ahead of every other Minnesota county. 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 Ramsey County
Across Ramsey County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Kingsley, Zimmerman, and Hayden are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.9–6.5, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
4%
Hydric soils
17%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Ramsey County
The USDA soil survey maps 13% of Ramsey County as well drained — but another 23% drains differently: 7% very poorly drained, 6% somewhat excessively drained.
Kingsley is the most extensive named soil at 15% of mapped acres, then Zimmerman (12%) and Hayden (10%).
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 Ramsey County
Each reading below is measured for Ramsey 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 Ramsey County are well drained, in hydrologic group A — 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 Ramsey County runs about pH 5.9–6.5, 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
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 17% of Ramsey 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
MeasuredRamsey County runs about 199 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 Ramsey County is in
Ramsey 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 Ramsey County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Ramsey County's own USDA zone 5a and its own 199-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 Ramsey 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 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 26 — 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 Ramsey County
- Japanese beetle25 documented records
- monarch butterfly2,255 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Ramsey County
USGS estimates 2,305 lb of Glyphosate on Ramsey County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (1,200 lb) and 2,4-d (1,054 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 Ramsey County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Ramsey County — 4,756 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 27 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Ramsey 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 Ramsey County
Closest first, across Ramsey County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Tiesi/harvest States CoopUnderground Storage Tanks · 200 ft
- 3m Tape Plant Building 22Underground Storage Tanks · 200 ft
- 3m Tape Building 26Underground Storage Tanks · 200 ft
- ST JUDE MEDICAL TECH CENTERBrownfields · 1100 ft
- Formerly Brooks Food Market #47Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- TRUE CHIROPRACTIC INCBrownfields · 1600 ft
- MARTELL DIAGNOSTIC LABORATORIES INCBrownfields · 1600 ft
- INTERSTATE BRANDS CORP - LITTBrownfields · 1600 ft
- SPINAL WELLNESS CENTERBrownfields · 1600 ft
- FEICKERT DECORATINGBrownfields · 1700 ft
- SCHOEWE RICHARD MDBrownfields · 1800 ft
- INSIDE OUT CHIROPRATIC CENTERBrownfields · 1900 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Ramsey 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 Ramsey County.
Sources Checked
across Ramsey County
Severity Distribution
across Ramsey County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Ramsey County, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 3,358 sites across Ramsey County. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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 Ramsey 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 Ramsey County average
Your land is one point inside Ramsey County
Everything above resolves to Ramsey County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 97K 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 Ramsey County Average
Ramsey County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Ramsey County
- ●One soil character for all of Ramsey County
- ●Frost dates read at Ramsey County's scale: Apr 10 to Oct 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Ramsey County's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Ramsey County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Ramsey County, Minnesota — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Ramsey County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Ramsey County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Ramsey County average
How we know this about Ramsey 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 Ramsey County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Ramsey County
When does frost risk typically end in Ramsey County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Ramsey County typically lands around Apr 10, 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 1.
How long is the growing season in Ramsey County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Ramsey County sees about 199 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Oct 12, about 164 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Ramsey County?
The federal record around Ramsey County runs heavier than most — 4,756 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (3,358), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Ramsey County's scale — its 5a band and its 199-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Ramsey 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 Ramsey County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Ramsey County's own scale — its own ~199-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 4,756 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Ramsey County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Ramsey County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~199-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Ramsey CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 4,756 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
- Ramsey County's boundary and the 97,446 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~199-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Ramsey County sitting wholly inside the North Central Hardwood ForestsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Ramsey County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Ramsey 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 Ramsey County — the ~199 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 Ramsey County's 97,446 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 4,756 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 Ramsey Countyread your own land →