Custer County, in Nebraska, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Custer County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Custer 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 Custer County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Custer County — the short answer
Custer County, Nebraska: USDA zone 5b, about 166 days between hard freezes, across 1.6M acres.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~166
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 1.6M 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 Custer County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Custer County's 166-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Custer County
Across a year, Custer County accumulates about 2,529 growing degree days above 50°F, about 311 fewer than the middle Nebraska county — ahead of 13 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 Custer County
Across Custer County, the ground is predominantly Entisols, where Uly, Coly, and Valentine are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.5–7.2, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Entisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
24%
Hydric soils
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Custer County
The USDA soil survey maps 80% of Custer County as well drained — but another 20% drains differently: 16% excessively drained, 2% somewhat poorly drained.
Uly is the most extensive named soil at 23% of mapped acres, then Coly (20%) and Valentine (17%).
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 Custer County
Each reading below is measured for Custer 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 Custer County are well drained, in hydrologic group B — 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 Custer County runs about pH 6.5–7.2, 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
MeasuredCuster County runs about 166 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
MeasuredCuster 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 Custer County is in
Custer County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Central Great Plains (85%) and Nebraska Sand Hills (15%). 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 Custer County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Custer County's own USDA zone 5b and its own 166-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 Custer County?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Apr 2; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 30 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 13 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Even past midsummer there is room for a true fall garden here, and garlic planted near the close carries the momentum into next year.
Documented around Custer County
- monarch butterfly4 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Custer County
USGS estimates 267,738 lb of Glyphosate on Custer County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (248,730 lb) and Acetochlor (216,758 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 Custer County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Custer County — 107 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Toxics Release Inventory facility. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Custer 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 Custer County
Closest first, across Custer County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ROD'S BODY & PAINTBrownfields · 2.8 mi
- CUSTER CO IMPL INCBrownfields · 2.8 mi
- TROTTERS WHOA & GO WESTUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
- 17N 20W30DADD1Nitrate · 3.9 mi
- ADAMS LAND & CATTLE , LLC SOUTH LOTCAFO · 4.1 mi
- BUTLER AMOCO SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
- UNITED PARCEL SERVICE - BROKEN BOWBrownfields · 4.5 mi
- BROKEN BOW, CITY OFBrownfields · 4.6 mi
- SARGENT IRRIGATION CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
- TROTTERS WHOA & GO EXPRESS IIIUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.7 mi
- BROKEN BOW HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 4.7 mi
- 5TH STREET CARD-TROLUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Custer 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 Custer County.
Total Sites
107
across Custer County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
across Custer County
Severity Distribution
across Custer County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Custer County, two things run higher than the national average across Custer County — CAFO (13 sites) and Nitrate (52 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Custer 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 Custer County average
Your land is one point inside Custer County
Everything above resolves to Custer County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 1.6M 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 Custer County Average
Custer County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Custer County
- ●One soil character for all of Custer County
- ●Frost dates read at Custer County's scale: Apr 30 to Oct 13
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Custer County's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Custer County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Custer County, Nebraska — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Custer County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Custer County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Custer County average
How we know this about Custer 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 Custer County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Custer County
When does frost risk typically end in Custer County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Custer County typically lands around Apr 30, 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 21.
How long is the growing season in Custer County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Custer County sees about 166 frost-free days — roughly Apr 30 through Oct 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 21 to Sep 29, about 131 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Custer County?
The federal record around Custer County shows 107 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (52), the nearest Brownfields record about 2.8 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 Custer County's scale — its 5b band and its 166-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Custer 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 Custer County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Custer County's own scale — its own ~166-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 107 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Custer County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Custer County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~166-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Custer CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 107 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 2.8 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Custer County's boundary and the 1,648,292 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~166-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Custer County spans, Central Great Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Custer County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Custer 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 Custer County — the ~166 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 Custer County's 1,648,292 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 107 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 Custer Countyread your own land →