Stevens County, in Minnesota, sits in USDA hardiness zone 4b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, cranberry, turkish rocket, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Stevens County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Stevens 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 Stevens County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Stevens County — the short answer
Stevens County, Minnesota: USDA zone 4b, about 171 days between hard freezes, across 361K acres.
- USDA zone
- 4b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~171
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 361K 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 Stevens County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Stevens County's 171-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Stevens County
Across a year, Stevens County accumulates about 2,231 growing degree days above 50°F, about 34 fewer than the middle Minnesota county — ahead of 37 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 Stevens County
Across Stevens County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Aazdahl, McIntosh, and Balaton are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately well drained with a clay loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.0–7.6, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Moderately well drained
Prime farmland
58%
Hydric soils
24%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Stevens County
The USDA soil survey maps 40% of Stevens County as moderately well drained — but another 57% drains differently: 22% well drained, 21% poorly drained.
Aazdahl is the most extensive named soil at 18% of mapped acres, then McIntosh (8%) and Balaton (8%).
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 Stevens County
Each reading below is measured for Stevens 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 Stevens County are moderately well drained, in hydrologic group C — roughly the middle of the drainage range.
This is close to the middle most vegetables prefer: it holds enough water to carry a crop between rains without staying waterlogged. The catch is that a wet spring or a low corner can still tip it soggy.
Plant on the site as-is for most crops, but keep the lowest, slowest-draining beds for moisture-tolerant plantings.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Stevens County runs about pH 7.0–7.6, 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 24% of Stevens 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
MeasuredStevens County runs about 171 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 Stevens County is in
Stevens County sits in the Northern Glaciated Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Stevens County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Stevens County's own USDA zone 4b and its own 171-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 Stevens 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 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 22 (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. As the window narrows, the plantings just get faster — fall brassicas, then greens, then garlic to finish.
Documented around Stevens County
- monarch butterfly506 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Stevens County
USGS estimates 205,085 lb of Glyphosate on Stevens County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acetochlor (73,496 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (62,889 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 Stevens County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Stevens County — 203 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 Stevens 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 Stevens County
Closest first, across Stevens County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Donnelly Coop (formerly Creamery)Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- 577131Nitrate · 1.3 mi
- FARMCO SUPPLY LLP - SEC 5CAFO · 1.3 mi
- Alberta CenexUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- TRI-COUNTY COOP OIL - CHOKIOBrownfields · 3.1 mi
- MORRIS AUTO PLAZABrownfields · 3.1 mi
- WEST WIND VILLAGEBrownfields · 3.1 mi
- MorrisPFAS · 3.2 mi
- CMS PETROLEUM EQUIP COBrownfields · 3.2 mi
- 402620Nitrate · 3.3 mi
- Concrete of Morris IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- CONCRETE OF MORRIS INCBrownfields · 3.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Stevens 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 Stevens County.
Sources Checked
across Stevens County
Severity Distribution
across Stevens County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Stevens County, two things run higher than the national average across Stevens County — CAFO (16 sites) and Nitrate (82 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
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 Stevens 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 Stevens County average
Your land is one point inside Stevens County
Everything above resolves to Stevens County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 361K 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 Stevens County Average
Stevens County Average
- ●USDA Zones 4b, averaged across Stevens County
- ●One soil character for all of Stevens County
- ●Frost dates read at Stevens County's scale: Apr 22 to Oct 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Stevens County's 4b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Stevens County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Stevens County, Minnesota — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Stevens County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Stevens County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Stevens County average
How we know this about Stevens 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 Stevens County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Stevens County
When does frost risk typically end in Stevens County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Stevens County typically lands around Apr 22, 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 13.
How long is the growing season in Stevens County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Stevens County sees about 171 frost-free days — roughly Apr 22 through Oct 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 13 to Sep 26, about 136 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Stevens County?
The federal record around Stevens County is a meaningful one — 203 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (82), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Stevens County's scale — its 4b band and its 171-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Stevens 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 Stevens County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Stevens County's own scale — its own ~171-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 203 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Stevens County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 4bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Stevens County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~171-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Stevens CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 203 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Stevens County's boundary and the 360,743 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 4b and a ~171-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Stevens County sitting wholly inside the Northern Glaciated PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Stevens County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Stevens 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 Stevens County — the ~171 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 Stevens County's 360,743 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 203 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 Stevens Countyread your own land →