Sheboygan 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.
Expect cabbage, blueberry, lavender, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Sheboygan 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
Sheboygan County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Sheboygan 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 Sheboygan County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Sheboygan County — the short answer
Sheboygan County, Wisconsin: USDA zone 5b, about 210 days between hard freezes, across 327K acres.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~210
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 327K 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 Sheboygan County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Sheboygan County's 210-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Sheboygan County
Across a year, Sheboygan County accumulates about 2,053 growing degree days above 50°F, about 97 fewer than the middle Wisconsin county — ahead of 26 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 Sheboygan County
Across Sheboygan County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Kewaunee, Casco, 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
40%
Hydric soils
17%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Sheboygan County
The USDA soil survey maps 55% of Sheboygan County as well drained — but another 43% drains differently: 13% somewhat poorly drained, 10% somewhat excessively drained.
Kewaunee is the most extensive named soil at 23% of mapped acres, then Casco (8%) and Manawa (7%).
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 Sheboygan County
Each reading below is measured for Sheboygan 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 Sheboygan 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 Sheboygan 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 Sheboygan 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
MeasuredSheboygan County runs about 210 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 Sheboygan County is in
Sheboygan 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 Sheboygan County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Sheboygan County's own USDA zone 5b and its own 210-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 Sheboygan 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 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 5 — 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 Sheboygan County
- monarch butterfly3 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Sheboygan County
USGS estimates 73,793 lb of Glyphosate on Sheboygan County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (52,682 lb) and Metolachlor-s (41,038 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 Sheboygan County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Sheboygan County — 1,243 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 5 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 Sheboygan 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 Sheboygan County
Closest first, across Sheboygan County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FORMER HOUSEYE FILLING STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- SHEBOYGAN CONCRETE CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- Ap Marketing LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- NORTHLAND PLASTICSBrownfields · 1400 ft
- NORTHLAND PLASTICSToxics Release Inventory · 1400 ft
- Van Der Vaart Conrete ProductsUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- Indiana ClarkUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- WOLFS LINEN & UNIFORM RENT INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- VAN DER VAART INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- NEMSCHOFF CHAIRS INCToxics Release Inventory · 2200 ft
- CITY OF SHEBOYGANUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- TERRYS RESTAURANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Sheboygan 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 Sheboygan County.
Sources Checked
across Sheboygan County
Severity Distribution
across Sheboygan 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 Sheboygan 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 Sheboygan County average
Your land is one point inside Sheboygan County
Everything above resolves to Sheboygan County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 327K 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 Sheboygan County Average
Sheboygan County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Sheboygan County
- ●One soil character for all of Sheboygan County
- ●Frost dates read at Sheboygan County's scale: Apr 9 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Sheboygan County's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Sheboygan County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Sheboygan County, Wisconsin — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Sheboygan County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Sheboygan County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Sheboygan County average
How we know this about Sheboygan 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 Sheboygan County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Sheboygan County
When does frost risk typically end in Sheboygan County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Sheboygan County typically lands around Apr 9, 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 30.
How long is the growing season in Sheboygan County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Sheboygan County sees about 210 frost-free days — roughly Apr 9 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 30 to Oct 22, about 175 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Sheboygan County?
The federal record around Sheboygan County is a meaningful one — 1,243 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (734), 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 Sheboygan County's scale — its 5b band and its 210-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Sheboygan 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 Sheboygan County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Sheboygan County's own scale — its own ~210-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 1,243 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Sheboygan County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Sheboygan County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~210-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Sheboygan CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 1,243 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
- Sheboygan County's boundary and the 327,372 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~210-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Sheboygan County sitting wholly inside the Southeastern Wisconsin Till PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Sheboygan County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Sheboygan 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 Sheboygan County — the ~210 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 Sheboygan County's 327,372 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 1,243 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 Sheboygan Countyread your own land →