Merrick 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.
These conditions suit cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Merrick County lies within the Platte River Valley — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Merrick County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Merrick 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 Merrick County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Merrick County — the short answer
Merrick County, Nebraska: USDA zone 5b, about 196 days between hard freezes, across 312K acres.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~196
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 312K 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 Merrick County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Merrick County's 196-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Merrick County
Across a year, Merrick County accumulates about 3,148 growing degree days above 50°F, about 308 more than the middle Nebraska county — ahead of 75 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 Merrick County
Across Merrick County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Valentine, Leshara, and Lex are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally somewhat poorly drained with a loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.5–7.5, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Somewhat poorly drained
Prime farmland
34%
Hydric soils
7%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Merrick County
The USDA soil survey maps 37% of Merrick County as somewhat poorly drained — but another 62% drains differently: 24% moderately well drained, 20% well drained.
Valentine is the most extensive named soil at 8% of mapped acres, then Leshara (6%) and Lex (6%).
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 Merrick County
Each reading below is measured for Merrick 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 Merrick County are somewhat poorly drained, in hydrologic group C — ground that sheds water slowly.
Beds can stay saturated for days after heavy rain, and the roots of most vegetables, berries, and fruit trees suffocate or rot in soil that never drains.
Raised beds or mounded rows lift roots above the wet zone; choose water-tolerant crops for the lowest spots.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Merrick County runs about pH 6.5–7.5, 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
MeasuredMerrick County runs about 196 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
MeasuredMerrick 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 Merrick County is in
Merrick County sits in the Central Great Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Merrick County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Merrick County's own USDA zone 5b and its own 196-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 Merrick 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 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 22 — 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 Merrick County
- Japanese beetle1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Merrick County
USGS estimates 197,554 lb of Glyphosate on Merrick County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (101,186 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (74,720 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 Merrick County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Merrick County — 105 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed). 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 Merrick 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 Merrick County
Closest first, across Merrick County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CHRISTENSEN CATTLE CO.CAFO · 0.9 mi
- 14N 6W 5DA 1Nitrate · 2.9 mi
- STROBEL ENERGY GROUPBrownfields · 3.5 mi
- 14N 7W26CC 1Nitrate · 3.5 mi
- 14N 6W26AAAA1 Central CityNitrate · 3.5 mi
- 15N 6W31CC 1Nitrate · 3.8 mi
- MERRICK COUNTY HWY DEPTUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- CITIZENS BANK & TRUSTUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- CENTRAL CITY PRIVATE WELLSSuperfund · 4.1 mi
- JIMs INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #1804Underground Storage Tanks · 4.2 mi
- T.O. HAAS TIRE & AUTO #5144Brownfields · 4.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Merrick 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 Merrick County.
Total Sites
105
across Merrick County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Merrick County
Severity Distribution
across Merrick County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Merrick County, two things run higher than the national average across Merrick County — CAFO (7 sites) and Nitrate (68 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 Merrick 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 Merrick County average
Your land is one point inside Merrick County
Everything above resolves to Merrick County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 312K 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 Merrick County Average
Merrick County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Merrick County
- ●One soil character for all of Merrick County
- ●Frost dates read at Merrick County's scale: Apr 9 to Oct 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Merrick County's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Merrick County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Merrick County, Nebraska — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Merrick County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Merrick County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Merrick County average
How we know this about Merrick 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 Merrick County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Merrick County
When does frost risk typically end in Merrick County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Merrick County typically lands around Apr 9, 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 Apr 30.
How long is the growing season in Merrick County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Merrick County sees about 196 frost-free days — roughly Apr 9 through Oct 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 30 to Oct 8, about 161 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Merrick County?
The federal record around Merrick County is a meaningful one — 105 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (68), the nearest CAFO record about 0.9 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 Merrick County's scale — its 5b band and its 196-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Merrick 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 Merrick County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Merrick County's own scale — its own ~196-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 105 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Merrick County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Merrick County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~196-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Merrick CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 105 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest CAFO record about 0.9 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Merrick County's boundary and the 312,188 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~196-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Merrick County sitting wholly inside the Central Great PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Merrick County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Merrick 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 Merrick County — the ~196 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 Merrick County's 312,188 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 105 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 Merrick Countyread your own land →