Browns Crossing, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Browns Crossing, 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 Browns Crossing 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 Browns Crossing — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Browns Crossing — the short answer
Browns Crossing, Indiana: USDA zone 6a, about 204 days between hard freezes, across 290 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~204
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 290 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 Browns Crossing's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Browns Crossing's 204-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Browns Crossing
Each reading below is measured for Browns Crossing itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBrowns Crossing runs about 204 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
MeasuredBrowns Crossing 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 Browns Crossing is in
Browns Crossing sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Browns Crossing's own centroid rather than borrowed from Morgan County.
What Grows in Browns Crossing
Every plant below cleared Browns Crossing's own zone 6a and its 204-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Browns Crossing?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 8 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 29 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Browns Crossing
Survey cells within 31 miles of Browns Crossing checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 91 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Browns Crossing
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Browns Crossing. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- JOHNSON MORGAN CO GW STUDY MOR-55 46 FTNitrate · 1.6 mi
- USGS WELL MOR-50 24 FT JOHNSON-MORGAN CNTY GW PROJNitrate · 2.2 mi
- MARTINSVILLE MUNICIPAL SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- JOHNSON MORGAN CO GW STUDY MOR-48 24 FTNitrate · 2.6 mi
- CONTINENTAL BAKING COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- JOHNSON MORGAN CO GW STUDY MOR-52 24 FTNitrate · 2.8 mi
- NAWQA AG WELL FA10 NEAR MAXWELL, INNitrate · 2.9 mi
- ROGERS GROUP INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- DAVE O'MARA CONTRACTORS, INC. PLANT 35Toxics Release Inventory · 3.1 mi
- Speedway Service Station 6014Underground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
- Brothers Body & Paint IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
- JOYCE BEAMANUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Browns Crossing'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 Browns Crossing.
Total Sites
162
within ~10 miles of Browns Crossing
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Browns Crossing
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Browns Crossing
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
Check your specific parcel in Browns Crossing
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 Browns Crossing average
Your land is one point inside Browns Crossing
Everything above resolves to Browns Crossing as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 290 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 Browns Crossing Average
Browns Crossing Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Browns Crossing
- ●One soil character for all of Browns Crossing
- ●Frost dates read at Browns Crossing's scale: Apr 8 to Oct 29
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Browns Crossing's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Browns Crossing
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Browns Crossing, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Browns Crossing averages can't show:
We read public map data around Browns Crossing — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Browns Crossing average
How we know this about Browns Crossing
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 Browns Crossing’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 Browns Crossing
When does frost risk typically end in Browns Crossing?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Browns Crossing typically lands around Apr 8, 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 29.
When is the first frost in Browns Crossing?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Browns Crossing typically arrives around Oct 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 15, so the watching starts about Sep 29 — about 204 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Browns Crossing?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Browns Crossing sees about 204 frost-free days — roughly Apr 8 through Oct 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 29 to Oct 15, about 169 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Browns Crossing?
The federal record around Browns Crossing is a meaningful one — 162 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (89), the nearest Nitrate 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 I protect my plants from frost in Browns Crossing?
From about Sep 29 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 Oct 29 (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 Oct 29. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Browns Crossing's scale — its 6a band and its 204-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Browns Crossing'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 Browns Crossing’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Browns Crossing's own scale — its own ~204-day season between 28°F freezes, the 290 acres it covers and 162 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Browns Crossing's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Browns Crossing's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 8 and Oct 29 and the ~204-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 162 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Browns Crossing, the closest Nitrate record about 1.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Browns Crossing's boundary and the 290 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~204-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Browns Crossing's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Browns Crossing 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 Browns Crossing's 290 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Morgan County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Morgan 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 Morgan County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Browns Crossing's 290 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Browns Crossing you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 290 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 1.6 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 Browns Crossing-wide figureread your own land →