Kewaunee County, in Wisconsin, 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.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Kewaunee County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Kewaunee 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 Kewaunee County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Kewaunee County — the short answer
Kewaunee County, Wisconsin: USDA zone 5b, about 188 days between hard freezes, across 219K acres.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~188
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 219K 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 Kewaunee County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Kewaunee County's 188-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Kewaunee County
Across a year, Kewaunee County accumulates about 1,870 growing degree days above 50°F, about 280 fewer than the middle Wisconsin county — ahead of 15 of Wisconsin’s 72 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 Kewaunee County
Across Kewaunee County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Hortonville, Kewaunee, and Symco are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.5–7.0, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
39%
Hydric soils
17%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Kewaunee County
The USDA soil survey maps 60% of Kewaunee County as well drained — but another 39% drains differently: 17% somewhat poorly drained, 10% very poorly drained.
Hortonville is the most extensive named soil at 22% of mapped acres, then Kewaunee (12%) and Symco (8%).
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 Kewaunee County
Each reading below is measured for Kewaunee 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 Kewaunee 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 Kewaunee County runs about pH 6.5–7.0, 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
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 17% of Kewaunee County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredKewaunee County runs about 188 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
The kind of country Kewaunee County is in
Kewaunee County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Southeastern Wisconsin Till Plains (84%) and North Central Hardwood Forests (16%). 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 Kewaunee County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Kewaunee County's own USDA zone 5b and its own 188-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 Wisconsin profile.
Is it too late to plant in Kewaunee County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 22 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 27 — 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 Kewaunee County
- monarch butterfly19 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Kewaunee County
USGS estimates 50,550 lb of Glyphosate on Kewaunee County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (36,930 lb) and Metolachlor-s (27,396 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 Kewaunee County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Kewaunee County — 357 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 3 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 Kewaunee 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 Kewaunee County
Closest first, across Kewaunee County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ALGOMA MOTORSBrownfields · 900 ft
- WISCONSIN LABEL COUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- ALGOMA MOTORS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- WS PACKAGING GROUP INCToxics Release Inventory · 1100 ft
- WS PACKAGING GROUP INCBrownfields · 1100 ft
- HAROLD PERLEWITZUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- BELLIN HEALTH FAMILY MEDICAL CENTERBrownfields · 1300 ft
- Kewaunee County Hwy DeptUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- City Of Algoma Street DeptUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- MARY DACHELETUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- WILLIAM E KOSTKEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- ALGOMA ELEMENTARY SCHOOLBrownfields · 2100 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Kewaunee 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 Kewaunee County.
Sources Checked
across Kewaunee County
Severity Distribution
across Kewaunee County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Kewaunee County, two things run higher than the national average across Kewaunee County — CAFO (19 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (250 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.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Kewaunee 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 Kewaunee County average
Your land is one point inside Kewaunee County
Everything above resolves to Kewaunee County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 219K 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 Kewaunee County Average
Kewaunee County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Kewaunee County
- ●One soil character for all of Kewaunee County
- ●Frost dates read at Kewaunee County's scale: Apr 22 to Oct 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Kewaunee County's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Kewaunee County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Kewaunee County, Wisconsin — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Kewaunee County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Kewaunee County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Kewaunee County average
How we know this about Kewaunee 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 Kewaunee County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Kewaunee County
When does frost risk typically end in Kewaunee County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Kewaunee County typically lands around Apr 22, 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 13.
How long is the growing season in Kewaunee County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Kewaunee County sees about 188 frost-free days — roughly Apr 22 through Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 13 to Oct 13, about 153 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Kewaunee County?
The federal record around Kewaunee County is a meaningful one — 357 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (250), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.2 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 Kewaunee County's scale — its 5b band and its 188-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Kewaunee 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 Wisconsin's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Kewaunee County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Kewaunee County's own scale — its own ~188-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 357 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Kewaunee County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Kewaunee County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~188-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Kewaunee CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 357 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Kewaunee County's boundary and the 219,170 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~188-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Kewaunee County spans, Southeastern Wisconsin Till Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Kewaunee County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Kewaunee County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Wisconsin grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Wisconsin
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Kewaunee County — the ~188 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 Kewaunee County's 219,170 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 357 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 Kewaunee Countyread your own land →