Racine County, in Wisconsin, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Racine 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
Racine County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Racine 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 Racine County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Racine County — the short answer
Racine County, Wisconsin: USDA zone 6a, about 216 days between hard freezes, across 213K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~216
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 213K 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 6a is Racine County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Racine County's 216-day season, see what your own ground reads.
One county, several growing seasons
Racine County's hard-freeze record runs about 216 days between freezes — but that is the county-wide average, and several towns inside it carry a markedly different season in their own 30-year record: Burlington at about 183 days (against the county's ~216).
Those are measured records, not estimates. If you garden in one of these pockets, plant against your own town's season rather than the county's ~216-day average.
NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS (1991–2020), 30-year daily minimum record. Only held-out towns carrying their own record are named — a town with no record of its own is absent rather than estimated, and a county with nothing qualifying shows no spread at all.
Heat in Racine County
Across a year, Racine County accumulates about 2,414 growing degree days above 50°F, about 264 more than the middle Wisconsin county — ahead of 61 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 Racine County
Across Racine County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Ozaukee, Ashkum, and Elliott are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.2–7.0, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Moderately well drained
Prime farmland
40%
Hydric soils
25%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Racine County
The USDA soil survey maps 32% of Racine County as moderately well drained — but another 63% drains differently: 20% somewhat poorly drained, 16% poorly drained.
Ozaukee is the most extensive named soil at 19% of mapped acres, then Ashkum (11%) and Elliott (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 Racine County
Each reading below is measured for Racine 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 Racine County are moderately well drained, in hydrologic group C — roughly the middle of the drainage range.
This is close to the middle most vegetables prefer: it holds enough water to carry a crop between rains without staying waterlogged. The catch is that a wet spring or a low corner can still tip it soggy.
Plant on the site as-is for most crops, but keep the lowest, slowest-draining beds for moisture-tolerant plantings.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Racine County runs about pH 6.2–7.0, 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 25% of Racine 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
MeasuredRacine County runs about 216 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 Racine County is in
Racine County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Southeastern Wisconsin Till Plains (63%) and Central Corn Belt Plains (37%). 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 Racine County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Racine County's own USDA zone 6a and its own 216-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 Racine County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 7 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Racine County
- Japanese beetle2 documented records
- monarch butterfly36 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Racine County
USGS estimates 57,393 lb of Glyphosate on Racine County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (22,919 lb) and Metolachlor-s (20,332 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 Racine County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Racine County — 1,352 documented sites across 7 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 Racine 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 Racine County
Closest first, across Racine County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- JOHNSON FOUNDATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- S C Johnson & Son - Entomology Research CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- SC JOHNSON & SON INCBrownfields · 1700 ft
- Shoop Golf CourseUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- THE PRAIRIE SCHOOLBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- S C Johnson & Son Inc - Council HouseUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- M J PetroleumUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- PUGHS 4 MILE SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Super Wind Point MartUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- SCHULTZ AUTOMOTIVE INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- North Park Sanitary Dist ClsUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- EXPRESS CLEANERSBrownfields · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Racine 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 Racine County.
Sources Checked
across Racine County
Severity Distribution
across Racine County
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Racine 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 Racine County average
Your land is one point inside Racine County
Everything above resolves to Racine County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 213K 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 Racine County Average
Racine County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Racine County
- ●One soil character for all of Racine County
- ●Frost dates read at Racine County's scale: Apr 5 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Racine County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Racine County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Racine County, Wisconsin — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Racine County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Racine County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Racine County average
How we know this about Racine 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 Racine County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Racine County
When does frost risk typically end in Racine County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Racine County typically lands around Apr 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 Apr 26.
How long is the growing season in Racine County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Racine County sees about 216 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 24, about 181 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Racine County?
The federal record around Racine County is a meaningful one — 1,352 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (767), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Racine County's scale — its 6a band and its 216-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Racine 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 Racine County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Racine County's own scale — its own ~216-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 1,352 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Racine County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Racine County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~216-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Racine CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 1,352 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Racine County's boundary and the 212,873 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~216-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Racine County spans, Southeastern Wisconsin Till Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Racine County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Racine 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 Racine County — the ~216 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 Racine County's 212,873 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 1,352 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 Racine Countyread your own land →