Madison County, in Nebraska, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
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
Madison County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Madison 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 Madison County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Madison County — the short answer
Madison County, Nebraska: USDA zone 5b, about 179 days between hard freezes, across 366K acres.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~179
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 366K 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 Madison County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Madison County's 179-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Madison County
Across a year, Madison County accumulates about 2,731 growing degree days above 50°F, about 109 fewer than the middle Nebraska county — ahead of 33 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 Madison County
Across Madison County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Nora, Crofton, and Moody are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.3–7.2, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
39%
Hydric soils
3%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Madison County
The USDA soil survey maps 72% of Madison County as well drained — but another 27% drains differently: 13% excessively drained, 10% somewhat poorly drained.
Nora is the most extensive named soil at 20% of mapped acres, then Crofton (13%) and Moody (11%).
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 Madison County
Each reading below is measured for Madison 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 Madison 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 Madison County runs about pH 6.3–7.2, 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
MeasuredMadison County runs about 179 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
MeasuredMadison 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 Madison County is in
Madison 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 Madison County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Madison County's own USDA zone 5b and its own 179-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 Madison 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 22; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 19 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 15 — 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 Madison County
- monarch butterfly37 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Madison County
USGS estimates 296,539 lb of Glyphosate on Madison County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acetochlor (131,893 lb) and Atrazine (96,351 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 Madison County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Madison County — 205 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 12 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Madison County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Madison County
Closest first, across Madison County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BELINA FEEDLOT, LLCCAFO · 1.3 mi
- BATTLE CREEK FARMERS COOP/SOUTH PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- 22N 3W 8CA 1Nitrate · 4.5 mi
- GLENDALE FARMSUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.1 mi
- TILLYsUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.2 mi
- BATTLE CREEK FARMERS COOP N/SUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.3 mi
- 21N 3W 4DCCA1Nitrate · 7.1 mi
- 21N 3W 4DC 1Nitrate · 7.1 mi
- 22N 1W30BB 2Nitrate · 7.4 mi
- 23N 2W 3AB 1Nitrate · 7.4 mi
- 23N 2W 3ABAA1Nitrate · 7.5 mi
- HENN HOUSE DAIRYCAFO · 8.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Madison 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 Madison County.
Sources Checked
across Madison County
Severity Distribution
across Madison County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Madison County, two things run higher than the national average across Madison County — CAFO (10 sites) and Superfund (12 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
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 Madison 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 Madison County average
Your land is one point inside Madison County
Everything above resolves to Madison County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 366K 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 Madison County Average
Madison County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Madison County
- ●One soil character for all of Madison County
- ●Frost dates read at Madison County's scale: Apr 19 to Oct 15
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Madison County's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Madison County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Madison County, Nebraska — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Madison County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Madison County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Madison County average
How we know this about Madison 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 Madison County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Madison County
When does frost risk typically end in Madison County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Madison County typically lands around Apr 19, 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 10.
How long is the growing season in Madison County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Madison County sees about 179 frost-free days — roughly Apr 19 through Oct 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 10 to Oct 1, about 144 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Madison County?
The federal record around Madison County is a meaningful one — 205 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (63), the nearest CAFO record about 1.3 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.
Everything above is measured at Madison County's scale — its 5b band and its 179-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Madison 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 Madison County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Madison County's own scale — its own ~179-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 205 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Madison County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Madison County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~179-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Madison CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 205 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest CAFO record about 1.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Madison County's boundary and the 366,471 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~179-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Madison County sitting wholly inside the Western Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Madison County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Madison 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 Madison County — the ~179 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 Madison County's 366,471 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 205 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 Madison Countyread your own land →