Antelope County, in Nebraska, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, cranberry, lavender, 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
Antelope County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Antelope 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 Antelope County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Antelope County — the short answer
Antelope County, Nebraska: USDA zone 5a, about 176 days between hard freezes, across 549K acres.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~176
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 549K 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 Antelope County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Antelope County's 176-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Antelope County
Across a year, Antelope County accumulates about 2,652 growing degree days above 50°F, about 188 fewer than the middle Nebraska county — ahead of 27 of Nebraska’s 93 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 Antelope County
Across Antelope County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Thurman, Valentine, and Nora are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a loamy fine sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.6–6.8, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
26%
Hydric soils
3%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Antelope County
The USDA soil survey maps 50% of Antelope County as well drained — but another 49% drains differently: 36% excessively drained, 6% somewhat excessively drained.
Thurman is the most extensive named soil at 25% of mapped acres, then Valentine (11%) and Nora (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 Antelope County
Each reading below is measured for Antelope 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 Antelope 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 Antelope County runs about pH 5.6–6.8, 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
MeasuredAntelope County runs about 176 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
MeasuredAntelope 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 Antelope County is in
Antelope County spans 3 EPA Level III ecoregions — Western Corn Belt Plains (45%), Northwestern Glaciated Plains (26%) and Nebraska Sand Hills (25%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Antelope County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Antelope County's own USDA zone 5a and its own 176-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 Nebraska profile.
Is it too late to plant in Antelope County?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 24; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 21 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 14 — 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 Antelope County
- monarch butterfly64 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Antelope County
USGS estimates 417,222 lb of Glyphosate on Antelope County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acetochlor (199,109 lb) and Atrazine (146,086 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 Antelope County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Antelope County — 86 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Antelope County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Antelope County
Closest first, across Antelope County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #2378Underground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
- ANTELOPE MEMORIAL HOSPITALUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- GREEN LINE EQUIPMENTBrownfields · 3.8 mi
- NELIGH-OAKDALE PUBLIC SCHOOL - EASTWARD SITEBrownfields · 4.0 mi
- SMITTYS SUPER CLEAN INCBrownfields · 4.1 mi
- CUBBYS NELIGHUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- SMEAL FIRE APPARATUS COToxics Release Inventory · 4.7 mi
- KLABENES LAND & CATTLE, LLCCAFO · 4.7 mi
- KAYTON INTERNATIONAL INCBrownfields · 4.7 mi
- BLACKBURN MFG COBrownfields · 4.7 mi
- JONNY DODGE CHRYSLER JEEP INCBrownfields · 4.7 mi
- SMEAL SFA LLC - NELIGHBrownfields · 4.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Antelope 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 Antelope County.
Total Sites
86
across Antelope County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Antelope County
Severity Distribution
across Antelope County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Antelope County, two things run higher than the national average across Antelope County — CAFO (16 sites) and Nitrate (36 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 Antelope 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 Antelope County average
Your land is one point inside Antelope County
Everything above resolves to Antelope County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 549K 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 Antelope County Average
Antelope County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Antelope County
- ●One soil character for all of Antelope County
- ●Frost dates read at Antelope County's scale: Apr 21 to Oct 14
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Antelope County's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Antelope County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Antelope County, Nebraska — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Antelope County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Antelope County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Antelope County average
How we know this about Antelope 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 Antelope County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Antelope County
When does frost risk typically end in Antelope County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Antelope County typically lands around Apr 21, 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 12.
How long is the growing season in Antelope County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Antelope County sees about 176 frost-free days — roughly Apr 21 through Oct 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 12 to Sep 30, about 141 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Antelope County?
The federal record around Antelope County shows 86 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (36), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 3.6 miles 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.
Everything above is measured at Antelope County's scale — its 5a band and its 176-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Antelope 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 Nebraska's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Antelope County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Antelope County's own scale — its own ~176-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 86 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Antelope County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Antelope County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~176-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Antelope CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 86 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 3.6 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Antelope County's boundary and the 548,580 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~176-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 3 ecoregions Antelope County spans, Western Corn Belt Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Antelope County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Antelope County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Nebraska grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Nebraska
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Antelope County — the ~176 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 Antelope County's 548,580 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 86 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 Antelope Countyread your own land →