Clay Center, Nebraska, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Clay Center, 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 Clay Center 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 Clay Center — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Clay Center — the short answer
Clay Center, Nebraska: USDA zone 6a, about 195 days between hard freezes, across 468 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- 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
- City area
- 468 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 6a is Clay Center's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Clay Center's 195-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Clay Center
Each reading below is measured for Clay Center itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredClay Center 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
MeasuredClay Center sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Clay Center is in
Clay Center sits in the Central Great Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Clay Center's own centroid rather than borrowed from Clay County.
What Grows in Clay Center
Every plant below cleared Clay Center's own zone 6a and its 195-day season. Each card opens that plant's Nebraska profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Clay Center?
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 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. As the window narrows, the plantings just get faster — fall brassicas, then greens, then garlic to finish.
What's on the federal record near Clay Center
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Clay Center. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 6N 7W 1AA 1Nitrate · 900 ft
- COUNTRY STORE/AMPRIDEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- USDA MEAT ANIMAL RESEARCH CTRUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- MARC SECT 25 AUTO SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- MARC SECT 56 FARM SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- NAD BURN PIT/YARD DUMP AREASuperfund · 1500 ft
- NAD (MARC) YARD DUMPSuperfund · 1500 ft
- DAHLSTEN TRUCK LINE INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- 6N 7W 1BD 1Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- UNIVERSITY OF NEBR GREAT PLAINS VETERINARY EDU CENTERBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- HRUSKA MEAT ANIMAL RESEARCH CENTERSuperfund · 2.8 mi
- GREAT PLAINS PETROLEUM INC BULKUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Clay Center'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 Clay Center.
Total Sites
44
within ~10 miles of Clay Center
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
5 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Clay Center
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Clay Center
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Clay Center, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Clay Center — CAFO (4 sites) and Superfund (5 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.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Clay Center
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 Clay Center average
Your land is one point inside Clay Center
Everything above resolves to Clay Center as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 468 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 city 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 Clay Center Average
Clay Center Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Clay Center
- ●One soil character for all of Clay Center
- ●Frost dates read at Clay Center's scale: Apr 10 to Oct 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Clay Center's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Clay Center
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Clay Center, Nebraska — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Clay Center averages can't show:
We read public map data around Clay Center — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Clay Center average
How we know this about Clay Center
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Clay Center’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Clay Center
When does frost risk typically end in Clay Center?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Clay Center 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 Clay Center?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Clay Center 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 Clay Center?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Clay Center 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 Clay Center?
The federal record around Clay Center is a meaningful one — 44 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (20), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.2 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Clay Center?
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 Clay Center's scale — its 6a band and its 195-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Clay Center'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 Clay Center’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Clay Center's own scale — its own ~195-day season between 28°F freezes, the 468 acres it covers and 44 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Clay Center's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Clay Center's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 10 and Oct 22 and the ~195-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 44 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Clay Center, the closest Nitrate record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Clay Center's boundary and the 468 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~195-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Clay Center's own centroid, the Central Great PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Clay Center's 468 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Clay County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Clay 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 Clay County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Clay Center's 468 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Clay Center you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 468 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.2 miles 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 Clay Center-wide figureread your own land →
More in Nebraska
Wider growing context
What grows across NebraskaClay Center sits outside our named growing regions, so Nebraska as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides