Dundy County, in Nebraska, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Dundy County lies within the High Plains — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Dundy County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Dundy 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 Dundy County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Dundy County — the short answer
Dundy County, Nebraska: USDA zone 5b, about 180 days between hard freezes, across 589K acres.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~180
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 589K 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 Dundy County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Dundy County's 180-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Dundy County
Across a year, Dundy County accumulates about 2,934 growing degree days above 50°F, about 94 more than the middle Nebraska county — ahead of 55 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 Dundy County
Across Dundy County, the ground is predominantly Entisols, where Valent, Sulco, and Blackwood are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally excessively drained with a sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.6–7.0, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A soils.
Soil order
Entisols
Drainage
Excessively drained
Hydric soils
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Dundy County
The USDA soil survey maps 51% of Dundy County as excessively drained — but another 49% drains differently: 44% well drained, 2% somewhat poorly drained.
Valent is the most extensive named soil at 49% of mapped acres, then Sulco (14%) and Blackwood (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 Dundy County
Each reading below is measured for Dundy 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 Dundy County are excessively 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 Dundy County runs about pH 6.6–7.0, 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
MeasuredDundy 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
MeasuredDundy 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 Dundy County is in
Dundy County sits in the High Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Dundy County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Dundy 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 Dundy County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. 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 18 — 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 gets applied to farmland in Dundy County
USGS estimates 199,145 lb of Glyphosate on Dundy County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (113,058 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (61,154 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 Dundy County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Dundy County — 61 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 concentrated animal feeding operation. Large-scale animal operations that can contaminate soil and groundwater with nitrates and pathogens.
The federal record across Dundy 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 Dundy County
Closest first, across Dundy County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 3N 39W23BCCB1Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- 3N 39W14DO 1Nitrate · 3.1 mi
- BANEY FEEDERS, LLCCAFO · 4.5 mi
- 2N 39W20AO 1Nitrate · 4.8 mi
- 2N 38W10DD 1 BENKELMANNitrate · 5.0 mi
- 2N 39W28CO 1Nitrate · 5.7 mi
- 3N 38W 4ABCD1Nitrate · 6.6 mi
- 2N 40W24AC 1Nitrate · 6.6 mi
- 2N 40W23ACDC1Nitrate · 7.2 mi
- 4N 38W30BCC 1 ENDERSNitrate · 7.3 mi
- 1N 39W10BBC 1Nitrate · 7.7 mi
- BENKELMAN, CITY OFPFAS · 7.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Dundy 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 Dundy County.
Total Sites
61
across Dundy County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 concentrated animal feeding operation
Sources Checked
across Dundy County
Severity Distribution
across Dundy County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Dundy County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 52 sites across Dundy County. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Dundy 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 Dundy County average
Your land is one point inside Dundy County
Everything above resolves to Dundy County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 589K 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 Dundy County Average
Dundy County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Dundy County
- ●One soil character for all of Dundy County
- ●Frost dates read at Dundy County's scale: Apr 21 to Oct 18
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Dundy County's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Dundy County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Dundy County, Nebraska — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Dundy County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Dundy County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Dundy County average
How we know this about Dundy 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 Dundy County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Dundy County
When does frost risk typically end in Dundy County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Dundy 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 Dundy County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Dundy County sees about 180 frost-free days — roughly Apr 21 through Oct 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 12 to Oct 4, about 145 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Dundy County?
The federal record around Dundy County shows 61 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (52), the nearest Nitrate record about 2.6 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 Dundy County's scale — its 5b band and its 180-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Dundy 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 Dundy County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Dundy County's own scale — its own ~180-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 61 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Dundy County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Dundy 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 Dundy CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 61 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 2.6 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Dundy County's boundary and the 588,594 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~180-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Dundy County sitting wholly inside the High PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Dundy 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 Dundy 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 Dundy County's 588,594 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 61 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 Dundy Countyread your own land →