Cuming County, in 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.
The conditions favor cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Cuming County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Cuming 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 Cuming County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Cuming County — the short answer
Cuming County, Nebraska: USDA zone 5b, about 180 days between hard freezes, across 365K acres.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~180
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 365K 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 5b is Cuming County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cuming County's 180-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Cuming County
Across a year, Cuming County accumulates about 2,837 growing degree days above 50°F, about 3 fewer than the middle Nebraska county — ahead of 45 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 Cuming County
Across Cuming County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Moody, Nora, and Alcester are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silty clay loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.5–6.8, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
43%
Hydric soils
6%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Cuming County
The USDA soil survey maps 77% of Cuming County as well drained — but another 22% drains differently: 10% somewhat poorly drained, 4% poorly drained.
Moody is the most extensive named soil at 32% of mapped acres, then Nora (21%) and Alcester (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 Cuming County
Each reading below is measured for Cuming 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 Cuming County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — 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 Cuming County runs about pH 6.5–6.8, 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
MeasuredCuming County runs about 180 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
MeasuredCuming County 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 Cuming County is in
Cuming County sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Cuming County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Cuming County's own USDA zone 5b and its own 180-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 Cuming 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 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 20 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 17 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Late in the year the fall bench takes over — quick greens, radishes, and garlic that repays you next summer.
Documented around Cuming County
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Cuming County
USGS estimates 331,932 lb of Glyphosate on Cuming County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acetochlor (142,162 lb) and Atrazine (104,039 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 Cuming County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Cuming County — 167 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 6 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Cuming 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 Cuming County
Closest first, across Cuming County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PRONTOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- 23N 5E35DC 1Nitrate · 1.3 mi
- PEETS FEEDS INCToxics Release Inventory · 1.3 mi
- VILLAGE EXPRESSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- DOUBLE K CATTLECAFO · 2.1 mi
- DUSTIN HOLTZ LIVESTOCKCAFO · 2.1 mi
- 22N 5E 3AC 1Nitrate · 2.3 mi
- 22N 5E 3BDDB1Nitrate · 2.5 mi
- STEFFEN BROTHERS PARTNERSHIPCAFO · 2.7 mi
- EAGLE RIDGE FEEDYARDCAFO · 3.0 mi
- RITTER FEEDYARD - NORTHCAFO · 3.0 mi
- WEST POINT CUSTOM FEEDERSCAFO · 3.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cuming 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 Cuming County.
Total Sites
167
across Cuming County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
6 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Cuming County
Severity Distribution
across Cuming County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cuming County, CAFO runs higher than the national average — 87 sites across Cuming County. 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.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check your specific parcel in Cuming 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 Cuming County average
Your land is one point inside Cuming County
Everything above resolves to Cuming County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 365K 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 Cuming County Average
Cuming County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Cuming County
- ●One soil character for all of Cuming County
- ●Frost dates read at Cuming County's scale: Apr 20 to Oct 17
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cuming County's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Cuming County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cuming County, Nebraska — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cuming County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cuming County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cuming County average
How we know this about Cuming 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 Cuming County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Cuming County
When does frost risk typically end in Cuming County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cuming County typically lands around Apr 20, 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 11.
How long is the growing season in Cuming County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cuming County sees about 180 frost-free days — roughly Apr 20 through Oct 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 11 to Oct 3, about 145 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cuming County?
The federal record around Cuming County shows 167 documented sites, mostly CAFO entries (87), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.2 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 Cuming County's scale — its 5b band and its 180-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cuming 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 Cuming County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Cuming County's own scale — its own ~180-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 167 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cuming County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cuming County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~180-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Cuming CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 167 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Cuming County's boundary and the 365,113 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~180-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Cuming County sitting wholly inside the Western Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Cuming County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Cuming 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 Cuming County — the ~180 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 Cuming County's 365,113 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 167 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 Cuming Countyread your own land →