Bartholomew County, in Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Bartholomew County lies within the Southern Indiana & the Ohio River Valley — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Bartholomew County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Bartholomew 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 Bartholomew County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Bartholomew County — the short answer
Bartholomew County, Indiana: USDA zone 6b, about 218 days between hard freezes, across 260K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~218
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 260K 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 6b is Bartholomew County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bartholomew County's 218-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Bartholomew County
Across a year, Bartholomew County accumulates about 3,398 growing degree days above 50°F, about 242 more than the middle Indiana county — ahead of 64 of Indiana’s 92 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 Bartholomew County
Across Bartholomew County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Fincastle, Crosby, and Miami are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally somewhat poorly drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.9–6.5, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B/D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Somewhat poorly drained
Prime farmland
23%
Hydric soils
13%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Bartholomew County
The USDA soil survey maps 29% of Bartholomew County as somewhat poorly drained — but another 65% drains differently: 27% well drained, 26% moderately well drained.
Fincastle is the most extensive named soil at 8% of mapped acres, then Crosby (7%) and Miami (6%).
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 Bartholomew County
Each reading below is measured for Bartholomew 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 Bartholomew County are somewhat poorly drained, in hydrologic group B/D — ground that sheds water slowly.
Beds can stay saturated for days after heavy rain, and the roots of most vegetables, berries, and fruit trees suffocate or rot in soil that never drains.
Raised beds or mounded rows lift roots above the wet zone; choose water-tolerant crops for the lowest spots.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Bartholomew County runs about pH 5.9–6.5, 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
Season length
MeasuredBartholomew County runs about 218 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
MeasuredBartholomew County 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 Bartholomew County is in
Bartholomew County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Eastern Corn Belt Plains (90%) and Interior Plateau (10%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Bartholomew County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Bartholomew County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 218-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 Indiana profile.
Is it too late to plant in Bartholomew 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 Mar 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 31 (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. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Bartholomew County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Bartholomew County 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.
- monarch butterfly157 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Bartholomew County
USGS estimates 145,824 lb of Glyphosate on Bartholomew County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (56,490 lb) and Atrazine (55,083 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 Bartholomew County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Bartholomew County — 453 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 6 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Bartholomew County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Bartholomew County
Closest first, across Bartholomew County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- THOMAS & SMITH INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- BOYER MACHINE AND TOOL CO INCBrownfields · 1600 ft
- GREEN BELT GOLF COURSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- Cummins Engine Company Incorporated Tech CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- CUMMINS INC COLUMBUS ENGINE PLANTBrownfields · 2200 ft
- CUMMINS INC COLUMBUS ENGINE PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 2200 ft
- FASHION CLEANERSBrownfields · 2400 ft
- GOLDEN CASTING CORPToxics Release Inventory · 2500 ft
- GOLDEN CASTING CORPBrownfields · 2500 ft
- CUMMINS INC., TECHNICAL CENTER - PLANTBrownfields · 2600 ft
- CUMMINS INC., TECHNICAL CENTER - PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 2600 ft
- Golden Casting CorporationUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bartholomew 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 Bartholomew County.
Sources Checked
across Bartholomew County
Severity Distribution
across Bartholomew County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bartholomew County, two things run higher than the national average across Bartholomew County — Toxics Release Inventory (41 sites) and Superfund (6 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 Bartholomew 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 Bartholomew County average
Your land is one point inside Bartholomew County
Everything above resolves to Bartholomew County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 260K 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 Bartholomew County Average
Bartholomew County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Bartholomew County
- ●One soil character for all of Bartholomew County
- ●Frost dates read at Bartholomew County's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bartholomew County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Bartholomew County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bartholomew County, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bartholomew County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bartholomew County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bartholomew County average
How we know this about Bartholomew 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 Bartholomew County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Bartholomew County
When does frost risk typically end in Bartholomew County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bartholomew County typically lands around Mar 31, 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 21.
How long is the growing season in Bartholomew County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bartholomew County sees about 218 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 21, about 183 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bartholomew County?
The federal record around Bartholomew County runs heavier than most — 453 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (251), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
Everything above is measured at Bartholomew County's scale — its 6b band and its 218-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bartholomew 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 Indiana's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Bartholomew County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Bartholomew County's own scale — its own ~218-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 453 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bartholomew County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bartholomew County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~218-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Bartholomew CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 453 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Bartholomew County's boundary and the 260,441 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~218-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Bartholomew County spans, Eastern Corn Belt Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Bartholomew County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Bartholomew County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Indiana grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Indiana
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Bartholomew County — the ~218 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 Bartholomew County's 260,441 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 453 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 Bartholomew Countyread your own land →