Vilas County, in Wisconsin, sits in USDA hardiness zone 4b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Growers here do well with cabbage, cranberry, cilantro, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Vilas County lies within the Northwoods (Northern Wisconsin) — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Vilas County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Vilas 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 Vilas County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Vilas County — the short answer
Vilas County, Wisconsin: USDA zone 4b, about 143 days between hard freezes, across 549K acres.
- USDA zone
- 4b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- May 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~143
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 549K 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 4b is Vilas County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Vilas County's 143-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Vilas County
Across a year, Vilas County accumulates about 1,549 growing degree days above 50°F, about 601 fewer than the middle Wisconsin county — ahead of 3 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 Vilas County
Across Vilas County, the ground is predominantly Spodosols, where Rubicon, Sayner, and Pence are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally excessively drained with a sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.8–5.5, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A soils.
Soil order
Spodosols
Drainage
Excessively drained
Prime farmland
5%
Hydric soils
20%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Vilas County
The USDA soil survey maps 28% of Vilas County as excessively drained — but another 57% drains differently: 16% moderately well drained, 15% very poorly drained.
Rubicon is the most extensive named soil at 21% of mapped acres, then Sayner (13%) and Pence (12%).
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 Vilas County
Each reading below is measured for Vilas 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 Vilas County are excessively drained, in hydrologic group A — 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 Vilas County runs about pH 4.8–5.5, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 20% of Vilas 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
MeasuredVilas County runs about 143 days between hard freezes — a short growing season.
Long-maturing crops like melons, sweet potatoes, and winter squash can run out of runway before the first hard freeze, ripening late or not at all.
Lead with fast-maturing varieties, and stretch the season on both ends with cold frames, low tunnels, or a greenhouse.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
The kind of country Vilas County is in
Vilas County sits in the Northern Lakes and Forests — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northern Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Vilas County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Vilas County's own USDA zone 4b and its own 143-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 Vilas County?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Apr 15; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near May 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 3 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Short seasons reward decisiveness — quick-maturing varieties late, hardy greens under cover, and next year’s garlic in the ground before it closes.
Documented around Vilas County
- Japanese beetle2 documented records
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Vilas County
USGS estimates 1,015 lb of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s on Vilas County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor-s (889 lb) and Linuron (230 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 Vilas County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Vilas County — 682 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 4 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed). 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 Vilas 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 Vilas County
Closest first, across Vilas County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- STILLWATERSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- STARLAKE SALOON & EATERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- RISMONS LODGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- VI-42/08E/31-0061Nitrate · 2.0 mi
- VI-41/08E/06-0068Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- VI-41/08E/06-0067Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- VI-41/08E/06-0064Nitrate · 2.7 mi
- VI-41/08E/06-0063Nitrate · 2.7 mi
- CAMP HIGHLANDS FOR BOYSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- VI-41/08E/19-0784Nitrate · 2.7 mi
- VI-41/07E/01-0062Nitrate · 2.7 mi
- VI-41/07E/01-0069Nitrate · 2.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Vilas 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 Vilas County.
Total Sites
682
across Vilas County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
4 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Vilas County
Severity Distribution
across Vilas County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Vilas County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 214 sites across Vilas 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 Vilas 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 Vilas County average
Your land is one point inside Vilas County
Everything above resolves to Vilas County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 549K 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 Vilas County Average
Vilas County Average
- ●USDA Zones 4b, averaged across Vilas County
- ●One soil character for all of Vilas County
- ●Frost dates read at Vilas County's scale: May 13 to Oct 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Vilas County's 4b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Vilas County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Vilas County, Wisconsin — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Vilas County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Vilas County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Vilas County average
How we know this about Vilas 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 Vilas County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Vilas County
When does frost risk typically end in Vilas County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Vilas County typically lands around May 13, 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 Jun 3.
How long is the growing season in Vilas County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Vilas County sees about 143 frost-free days — roughly May 13 through Oct 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Jun 3 to Sep 19, about 108 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Vilas County?
The federal record around Vilas County is a meaningful one — 682 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (412), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.6 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.
How do gardeners stretch the season in Vilas County?
With about 143 frost-free days between hard freezes, Vilas County rewards the classic extension moves: floating row cover buys roughly two to four extra weeks at each shoulder — on this season that is a working window nearer 171 to 199 days — and cold frames or low tunnels buy more. Starting transplants indoors ahead of the May 13 hard-freeze normal stretches the season without touching the calendar.
Everything above is measured at Vilas County's scale — its 4b band and its 143-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Vilas 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 Vilas County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Vilas County's own scale — its own ~143-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 682 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Vilas County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 4bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Vilas County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~143-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Vilas CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 682 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.6 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Vilas County's boundary and the 548,935 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 4b and a ~143-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Vilas County sitting wholly inside the Northern Lakes and ForestsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Vilas County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Vilas 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 Vilas County — the ~143 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 Vilas County's 548,935 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 682 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 Vilas Countyread your own land →