McLean County, in North Dakota, sits in USDA hardiness zone 4a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, cranberry, turkish rocket, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
McLean County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across McLean 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 McLean County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
McLean County — the short answer
McLean County, North Dakota: USDA zone 4a, about 150 days between hard freezes, across 1.4M acres.
- USDA zone
- 4a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- May 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~150
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 1.4M 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 4a is McLean County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against McLean County's 150-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in McLean County
Across a year, McLean County accumulates about 1,862 growing degree days above 50°F, about 51 fewer than the middle North Dakota county — ahead of 16 of North Dakota’s 53 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 McLean County
Across McLean County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Williams, Bowbells, and Zahl are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.8–7.2, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
8%
Hydric soils
9%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across McLean County
The USDA soil survey maps 75% of McLean County as well drained — but another 15% drains differently: 5% very poorly drained, 4% moderately well drained.
Williams is the most extensive named soil at 33% of mapped acres, then Bowbells (15%) and Zahl (9%).
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 McLean County
Each reading below is measured for McLean 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 McLean 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 McLean County runs about pH 6.8–7.2, 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
MeasuredMcLean County runs about 150 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
MeasuredMcLean County sits in USDA hardiness zone 4a.
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 McLean County is in
McLean County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Northwestern Glaciated Plains (88%) and Northwestern Great Plains (11%). 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 McLean County
We scored all 1,086 plants against McLean County's own USDA zone 4a and its own 150-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 North Dakota profile.
Is it too late to plant in McLean County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Apr 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near May 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 2 — 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.
What gets applied to farmland in McLean County
USGS estimates 806,516 lb of Glyphosate on McLean County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (100,587 lb) and Dicamba (87,583 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 McLean County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across McLean County — 722 documented sites across 4 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
There's a meaningful federal record across McLean 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 McLean County
Closest first, across McLean County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 148-084-08BCCNitrate · 700 ft
- Farmers Union Oil CompanyUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- 148-084-08CBCNitrate · 1200 ft
- 148-084-08CBANitrate · 1400 ft
- US West CommunicationsUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- 148-084-07AADNitrate · 1600 ft
- Eslinger ConocoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- 148-084-07DDANitrate · 1700 ft
- 148-084-08CCBNitrate · 1800 ft
- 148-084-07AABNitrate · 2300 ft
- Superpumper 35Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- McLean CountyUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from McLean 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 McLean County.
Total Sites
722
across McLean County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across McLean County
Severity Distribution
across McLean County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around McLean County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 604 sites across McLean 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 McLean 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 McLean County average
Your land is one point inside McLean County
Everything above resolves to McLean County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 1.4M 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 McLean County Average
McLean County Average
- ●USDA Zones 4a, averaged across McLean County
- ●One soil character for all of McLean County
- ●Frost dates read at McLean County's scale: May 5 to Oct 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not McLean County's 4a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in McLean County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in McLean County, North Dakota — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that McLean County averages can't show:
We read public map data around McLean County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the McLean County average
How we know this about McLean 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 McLean County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about McLean County
When does frost risk typically end in McLean County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in McLean County typically lands around May 5, 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 26.
How long is the growing season in McLean County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, McLean County sees about 150 frost-free days — roughly May 5 through Oct 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 26 to Sep 18, about 115 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in McLean County?
The federal record around McLean County is a meaningful one — 722 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (604), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.1 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 McLean County's scale — its 4a band and its 150-day season. Your yard writes its own version of McLean 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 North Dakota's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at McLean County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at McLean County's own scale — its own ~150-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 722 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- McLean County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 4aUSDA PHZM 2023
- McLean County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~150-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in McLean CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 722 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 0.1 miles outFederal environmental registers
- McLean County's boundary and the 1,350,573 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 4a and a ~150-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions McLean County spans, Northwestern Glaciated Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto McLean County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every North Dakota grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom North Dakota
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across McLean County — the ~150 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 McLean County's 1,350,573 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 722 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 McLean Countyread your own land →