Manitowoc County, in Wisconsin, 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.
Manitowoc County lies within the Southeastern Wisconsin Lakeshore (Milwaukee Metro) — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Manitowoc County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Manitowoc 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 Manitowoc County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Manitowoc County — the short answer
Manitowoc County, Wisconsin: USDA zone 5b, about 204 days between hard freezes, across 377K acres.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~204
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 377K 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 Manitowoc County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Manitowoc County's 204-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Manitowoc County
Across a year, Manitowoc County accumulates about 1,918 growing degree days above 50°F, about 232 fewer than the middle Wisconsin county — ahead of 17 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 Manitowoc County
Across Manitowoc County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Kewaunee, Hortonville, and Manawa 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 D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
35%
Hydric soils
22%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Manitowoc County
The USDA soil survey maps 50% of Manitowoc County as well drained — but another 48% drains differently: 24% somewhat poorly drained, 12% very poorly drained.
Kewaunee is the most extensive named soil at 22% of mapped acres, then Hortonville (12%) and Manawa (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 Manitowoc County
Each reading below is measured for Manitowoc 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 Manitowoc County are well drained, in hydrologic group D — 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 Manitowoc 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 22% of Manitowoc 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
MeasuredManitowoc County runs about 204 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
The kind of country Manitowoc County is in
Manitowoc County sits in the Southeastern Wisconsin Till Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Manitowoc County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Manitowoc County's own USDA zone 5b and its own 204-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 Manitowoc 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 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 11 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 1 — 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.
Documented around Manitowoc County
- Japanese beetle1 documented records
- monarch butterfly133 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Manitowoc County
USGS estimates 98,014 lb of Glyphosate on Manitowoc County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (73,975 lb) and Metolachlor-s (55,650 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 Manitowoc County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Manitowoc County — 965 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 11 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 Manitowoc 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 Manitowoc County
Closest first, across Manitowoc County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Stop N Dock MarinaUnderground Storage Tanks · 400 ft
- FORMER PETROLEUM CONSERVATION INC TANKSuperfund · 800 ft
- WPSC TWO RIVERS MGPSuperfund · 1000 ft
- PETROLEUM CONSERVATION INCSuperfund · 1700 ft
- THE AUTO CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- LAWRENCE HANSENUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- SUPERAMERICA #4093Underground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- SCHMITT LUMBER COUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- WALGREENS CO #9166Brownfields · 2500 ft
- TWO RIVERS SCHOOLS WASHINGTONBrownfields · 2500 ft
- RADANT Q PITUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- RINGMEIER DRYWALLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Manitowoc 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 Manitowoc County.
Sources Checked
across Manitowoc County
Severity Distribution
across Manitowoc County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Manitowoc County, two things run higher than the national average across Manitowoc County — CAFO (23 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (71 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.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Manitowoc 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 Manitowoc County average
Your land is one point inside Manitowoc County
Everything above resolves to Manitowoc County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 377K 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 Manitowoc County Average
Manitowoc County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Manitowoc County
- ●One soil character for all of Manitowoc County
- ●Frost dates read at Manitowoc County's scale: Apr 11 to Nov 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Manitowoc County's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Manitowoc County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Manitowoc County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Manitowoc County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Manitowoc County average
How we know this about Manitowoc 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 Manitowoc County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Manitowoc County
When does frost risk typically end in Manitowoc County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Manitowoc County typically lands around Apr 11, 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 2.
How long is the growing season in Manitowoc County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Manitowoc County sees about 204 frost-free days — roughly Apr 11 through Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 2 to Oct 18, about 169 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Manitowoc County?
The federal record around Manitowoc County is a meaningful one — 965 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (556), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Manitowoc County's scale — its 5b band and its 204-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Manitowoc 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 Manitowoc County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Manitowoc County's own scale — its own ~204-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 965 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Manitowoc County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Manitowoc County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~204-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Manitowoc CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 965 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile outFederal environmental registers
- Manitowoc County's boundary and the 377,157 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~204-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Manitowoc County sitting wholly inside the Southeastern Wisconsin Till PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Manitowoc County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Manitowoc 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 Manitowoc County — the ~204 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 Manitowoc County's 377,157 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 965 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 Manitowoc Countyread your own land →