Yutan, Nebraska, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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.
Even in Yutan, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Yutan lot. 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 Yutan — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Yutan — the short answer
Yutan, Nebraska: USDA zone 5b, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 367 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~200
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 367 acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 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 Yutan's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Yutan's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Yutan
Each reading below is measured for Yutan itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredYutan runs about 200 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredYutan 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 Yutan is in
Yutan sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Yutan's own centroid rather than borrowed from Saunders County.
What Grows in Yutan
Every plant below cleared Yutan's own zone 5b and its 200-day season. Each card opens that plant's Nebraska profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Yutan?
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 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 7 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 24 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
What's on the federal record near Yutan
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Yutan. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CUBBYS YUTANUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- NORTHERN NATURAL GAS - YUTAN NE #1 TBSBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- 15N 9E25 2Nitrate · 1.9 mi
- 15N 9E14 1Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- 15N 9E36 1Nitrate · 2.3 mi
- P-0718 15N 9E 24 SESENitrate · 2.4 mi
- 15N 09E25AA 1 (E-105)Nitrate · 2.4 mi
- 15N 09E25DA 1 (E-109)Nitrate · 2.4 mi
- 14N 09E01AADD2 (E-011)Nitrate · 3.0 mi
- 14N 10E 6BAD (E-121)Nitrate · 3.4 mi
- TRAVIS MERCHANTS OF VENICE CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- 15N 10E29CCBA1 (E-022)Nitrate · 3.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Yutan'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 Yutan.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Yutan
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Yutan
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Yutan, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Yutan — Superfund (6 sites) and Nitrate (116 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Yutan
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 Yutan average
Your land is one point inside Yutan
Everything above resolves to Yutan as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 367 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 city 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 local average.
Your Lot vs the Yutan Average
Yutan Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Yutan
- ●One soil character for all of Yutan
- ●Frost dates read at Yutan's scale: Apr 7 to Oct 24
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Yutan's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Yutan
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Yutan, Nebraska — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Yutan averages can't show:
We read public map data around Yutan — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Yutan average
How we know this about Yutan
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Yutan’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Yutan
When does frost risk typically end in Yutan?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Yutan typically lands around Apr 7, 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 28.
When is the first frost in Yutan?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Yutan typically arrives around Oct 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 10, so the watching starts about Sep 24 — about 200 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Yutan?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Yutan sees about 200 frost-free days — roughly Apr 7 through Oct 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 28 to Oct 10, about 165 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Yutan?
The federal record around Yutan is a meaningful one — 192 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (116), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Yutan?
From about Sep 24 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Oct 24 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Oct 24. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Yutan's scale — its 5b band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Yutan's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Yutan’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Yutan's own scale — its own ~200-day season between 28°F freezes, the 367 acres it covers and 192 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Yutan's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Yutan's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 7 and Oct 24 and the ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 192 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Yutan, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Yutan's boundary and the 367 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~200-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Yutan's own centroid, the Western Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Yutan's 367 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Saunders County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Saunders County
- The growing challenges every Nebraska grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Nebraska
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Saunders County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Yutan's 367 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Yutan you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 367 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Yutan-wide figureread your own land →