Blue Ridge, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
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 Blue Ridge, 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 Blue Ridge 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 Blue Ridge — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Blue Ridge — the short answer
Blue Ridge, Indiana: USDA zone 6a, about 211 days between hard freezes, across 280 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~211
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 280 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 6a is Blue Ridge's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Blue Ridge's 211-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Blue Ridge
Each reading below is measured for Blue Ridge itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBlue Ridge runs about 211 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
MeasuredBlue Ridge sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Blue Ridge is in
Blue Ridge sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Blue Ridge's own centroid rather than borrowed from Shelby County.
What Grows in Blue Ridge
Every plant below cleared Blue Ridge's own zone 6a and its 211-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Blue Ridge?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 4 (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 Blue Ridge
Survey cells within 31 miles of Blue Ridge checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 58 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Blue Ridge
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Blue Ridge. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- NAWQA AG WELL TP2RESET NEAR BLUE RIDGE, INNitrate · 1.5 mi
- NAWQA AG WELL TP2 NEAR BLUE RIDGE, INNitrate · 1.5 mi
- Shelby County CooperativeUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- DE CARMONYUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- PEPSI COLAUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- STUCKEY 234Underground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- MAHIN GRAINUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- AZALEA GRAINUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- Floyd Crim & Sons IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- SHELBYVILLE FIRE STATION 2Underground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- PHILLIPS 66 COMPANY 015040Underground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- HERBERT ADKINSUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Blue Ridge'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 Blue Ridge.
Total Sites
206
within ~10 miles of Blue Ridge
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
4 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Blue Ridge
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Blue Ridge
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Blue Ridge, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Blue Ridge — Toxics Release Inventory (31 sites) and Superfund (4 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Blue Ridge
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 Blue Ridge average
Your land is one point inside Blue Ridge
Everything above resolves to Blue Ridge as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 280 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 town 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 Blue Ridge Average
Blue Ridge Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Blue Ridge
- ●One soil character for all of Blue Ridge
- ●Frost dates read at Blue Ridge's scale: Apr 4 to Nov 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Blue Ridge's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Blue Ridge
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Blue Ridge, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Blue Ridge averages can't show:
We read public map data around Blue Ridge — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Blue Ridge average
How we know this about Blue Ridge
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Blue Ridge’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 town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-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 Blue Ridge
When does frost risk typically end in Blue Ridge?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Blue Ridge typically lands around Apr 4, 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 25.
When is the first frost in Blue Ridge?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Blue Ridge typically arrives around Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 18, so the watching starts about Oct 2 — about 211 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Blue Ridge?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Blue Ridge sees about 211 frost-free days — roughly Apr 4 through Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 25 to Oct 18, about 176 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Blue Ridge?
The federal record around Blue Ridge is a meaningful one — 206 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (107), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.5 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 I protect my plants from frost in Blue Ridge?
From about Oct 2 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 1 (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 1. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Blue Ridge's scale — its 6a band and its 211-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Blue Ridge'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 Blue Ridge’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Blue Ridge's own scale — its own ~211-day season between 28°F freezes, the 280 acres it covers and 206 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Blue Ridge's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Blue Ridge's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 4 and Nov 1 and the ~211-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 206 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Blue Ridge, the closest Nitrate record about 1.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Blue Ridge's boundary and the 280 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~211-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Blue Ridge's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Blue Ridge 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 Blue Ridge's 280 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Shelby County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Shelby County
- The growing challenges every Indiana grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Indiana
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Shelby County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Blue Ridge's 280 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Blue Ridge you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 280 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 1.5 miles 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 Blue Ridge-wide figureread your own land →
More in Indiana
Wider growing context
What grows across IndianaBlue Ridge sits outside our named growing regions, so Indiana as a whole is its closest context here.