Mount Carmel, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Mount Carmel, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Mount Carmel lot. 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 Mount Carmel — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Mount Carmel — the short answer
Mount Carmel, Illinois: USDA zone 6b, about 219 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~219
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 3K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 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 6b is Mount Carmel's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Mount Carmel's 219-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Mount Carmel
Each reading below is measured for Mount Carmel itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMount Carmel runs about 219 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
Winter hardiness
MeasuredMount Carmel sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
The zone sets which perennials, shrubs, and fruit trees live through an average winter here — a plant rated for a colder zone is a safe bet, one rated warmer needs winter protection or gets treated as an annual.
Match perennials and fruit to the zone before you buy, so nothing you plant is a gamble against the cold.
USDA PHZM 2023
The kind of country Mount Carmel is in
Mount Carmel sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Mount Carmel's own centroid rather than borrowed from Wabash County.
What Grows in Mount Carmel
Every plant below cleared Mount Carmel's own zone 6b and its 219-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Mount Carmel?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 2; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 30 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 4 — 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 Mount Carmel
Survey cells within 31 miles of Mount Carmel checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 154 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Mount Carmel
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Mount Carmel. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Housing Auth Of Wabash CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 350 ft
- Calvery Chapel ChurchUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- Wabash General HospitalUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- CVS PHARMACY 6887Brownfields · 1800 ft
- Casey's General Store #2293Underground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- Amoco Ss #5135Underground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- Bob L. WilliamsUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- White Dist CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- Whittys Service CompanyUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- Koch Ser IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- Kolb WeldingUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Jumpin' Jimmy'sUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Mount Carmel'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 Mount Carmel.
Total Sites
123
within ~10 miles of Mount Carmel
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Mount Carmel
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Mount Carmel
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Mount Carmel, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 97 sites within ~10 miles of Mount Carmel. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Mount Carmel
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 Mount Carmel average
Your land is one point inside Mount Carmel
Everything above resolves to Mount Carmel as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 city 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 local average.
Your Lot vs the Mount Carmel Average
Mount Carmel Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Mount Carmel
- ●One soil character for all of Mount Carmel
- ●Frost dates read at Mount Carmel's scale: Mar 30 to Nov 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Mount Carmel's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Mount Carmel
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Mount Carmel, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Mount Carmel averages can't show:
We read public map data around Mount Carmel — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mount Carmel average
How we know this about Mount Carmel
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Mount Carmel’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Mount Carmel
When does frost risk typically end in Mount Carmel?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Mount Carmel typically lands around Mar 30, 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 20.
When is the first frost in Mount Carmel?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Mount Carmel typically arrives around Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 21, so the watching starts about Oct 5 — about 219 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Mount Carmel?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Mount Carmel sees about 219 frost-free days — roughly Mar 30 through Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 20 to Oct 21, about 184 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Mount Carmel?
The federal record around Mount Carmel shows 123 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (97), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Mount Carmel?
From about Oct 5 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Nov 4 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Nov 4. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Mount Carmel's scale — its 6b band and its 219-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Mount Carmel's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Mount Carmel’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Mount Carmel's own scale — its own ~219-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,078 acres it covers and 123 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Mount Carmel's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Mount Carmel's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 30 and Nov 4 and the ~219-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 123 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Mount Carmel, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Mount Carmel's boundary and the 3,078 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~219-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Mount Carmel's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Mount Carmel checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Mount Carmel's 3,078 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Wabash County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Wabash County
- The growing challenges every Illinois grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Illinois
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Wabash County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Mount Carmel's 3,078 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Mount Carmel you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,078 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Mount Carmel-wide figureread your own land →
More in Illinois
Wider growing context
What grows across IllinoisMount Carmel sits outside our named growing regions, so Illinois as a whole is its closest context here.