Cedar Bluffs, Nebraska, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
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.
Even in Cedar Bluffs, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Cedar Bluffs lot. 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 Cedar Bluffs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Cedar Bluffs — the short answer
Cedar Bluffs, Nebraska: USDA zone 5b, about 195 days between hard freezes, across 248 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~195
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 248 acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 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 5b is Cedar Bluffs's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cedar Bluffs's 195-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cedar Bluffs
Each reading below is measured for Cedar Bluffs itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCedar Bluffs 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
Winter hardiness
MeasuredCedar Bluffs sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b.
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 Cedar Bluffs is in
Cedar Bluffs sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Cedar Bluffs's own centroid rather than borrowed from Saunders County.
What Grows in Cedar Bluffs
Every plant below cleared Cedar Bluffs's own zone 5b and its 195-day season. Each card opens that plant's Nebraska profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Cedar Bluffs?
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 22 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Cedar Bluffs
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cedar Bluffs. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CEDAR BLUFFS PUBLIC SCHOOLSBrownfields · 150 ft
- JOHNSONS TOUCH N GOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- BLUFFS TIRE AND REPAIRBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- 17N 8E28 1Nitrate · 4.3 mi
- TITAN MACHINERY - FREMONTBrownfields · 5.0 mi
- 17N 7E 2CBBB1Nitrate · 5.3 mi
- PLATTE VALLEY EQUIPMENT COBrownfields · 5.3 mi
- ROYAL CANIN USA INCToxics Release Inventory · 5.5 mi
- QUIK-PIKUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.5 mi
- VICTORY LAKE MARINEBrownfields · 5.5 mi
- J C FREMONT USARCBrownfields · 5.5 mi
- NORTHERN NATURAL GAS - FREMONT NE #1Brownfields · 5.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cedar Bluffs'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 Cedar Bluffs.
Total Sites
117
within ~10 miles of Cedar Bluffs
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
17 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cedar Bluffs
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cedar Bluffs
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cedar Bluffs, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 17 sites within ~10 miles of Cedar Bluffs. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Cedar Bluffs
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 Cedar Bluffs average
Your land is one point inside Cedar Bluffs
Everything above resolves to Cedar Bluffs as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 248 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 town 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 local average.
Your Lot vs the Cedar Bluffs Average
Cedar Bluffs Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Cedar Bluffs
- ●One soil character for all of Cedar Bluffs
- ●Frost dates read at Cedar Bluffs's scale: Apr 10 to Oct 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cedar Bluffs's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cedar Bluffs
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cedar Bluffs, Nebraska — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cedar Bluffs averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cedar Bluffs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cedar Bluffs average
How we know this about Cedar Bluffs
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Cedar Bluffs’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Cedar Bluffs
When does frost risk typically end in Cedar Bluffs?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cedar Bluffs 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.
When is the first frost in Cedar Bluffs?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cedar Bluffs typically arrives around Oct 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 8, so the watching starts about Sep 22 — about 195 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Cedar Bluffs?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cedar Bluffs sees about 195 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Oct 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Oct 8, about 160 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cedar Bluffs?
The federal record around Cedar Bluffs shows 117 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (48), the nearest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Cedar Bluffs?
From about Sep 22 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Oct 22 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Oct 22. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Cedar Bluffs's scale — its 5b band and its 195-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cedar Bluffs's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Cedar Bluffs’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Cedar Bluffs's own scale — its own ~195-day season between 28°F freezes, the 248 acres it covers and 117 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cedar Bluffs's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cedar Bluffs's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 10 and Oct 22 and the ~195-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 117 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cedar Bluffs, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cedar Bluffs's boundary and the 248 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~195-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Cedar Bluffs's own centroid, the Western Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Cedar Bluffs's 248 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Saunders County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Saunders County
- The growing challenges every Nebraska grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Nebraska
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Saunders County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Cedar Bluffs's 248 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cedar Bluffs you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 248 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Cedar Bluffs-wide figureread your own land →