Benton County, in Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Benton County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Benton 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 Benton County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Benton County — the short answer
Benton County, Indiana: USDA zone 5b, about 193 days between hard freezes, across 260K acres.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~193
- 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 5b is Benton County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Benton County's 193-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Benton County
Across a year, Benton County accumulates about 2,951 growing degree days above 50°F, about 205 fewer than the middle Indiana county — ahead of 26 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 Benton County
Across Benton County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Chalmers, Selma, and Odell are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.5–6.7, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B/D soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
26%
Hydric soils
43%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Benton County
The USDA soil survey maps 37% of Benton County as poorly drained — but another 63% drains differently: 32% somewhat poorly drained, 26% moderately well drained.
Chalmers is the most extensive named soil at 17% of mapped acres, then Selma (13%) and Odell (11%).
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 Benton County
Each reading below is measured for Benton 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 Benton County are 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 Benton County runs about pH 6.5–6.7, 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
MeasuredBenton County runs about 193 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredBenton County sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b.
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 Benton County is in
Benton County sits in the Central Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Benton County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Benton County's own USDA zone 5b and its own 193-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 Benton County?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 16; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 23 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. As the window narrows, the plantings just get faster — fall brassicas, then greens, then garlic to finish.
Documented around Benton County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Benton County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 51 miles off. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Benton County
USGS estimates 252,209 lb of Glyphosate on Benton County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (139,106 lb) and Acetochlor (91,136 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 Benton County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Benton County — 61 documented sites across 3 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Benton County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Benton County
Closest first, across Benton County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BENTON COUNTY HIGHWAY DEPARTMENTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Powell Systems IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- POWELL SYS INC FOWLER DIVToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- POWELL SYS INC FOWLER DIVBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- FOWLER WASTE WATER TREATMENT PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE 2056Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- IN DOT Fowler SubdistrictUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- INDOT FOWLER SUBDISTRICTBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- BENTON COMMUNITY SCHOOL CORPORATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- FOWLER AUTO SUPPLYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Ceres Solutions 152Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- DAILYS 66 SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Benton 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 Benton County.
Total Sites
61
across Benton County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Benton County
Severity Distribution
across Benton County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Benton County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 47 sites across Benton County. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Benton 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 Benton County average
Your land is one point inside Benton County
Everything above resolves to Benton 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 Benton County Average
Benton County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Benton County
- ●One soil character for all of Benton County
- ●Frost dates read at Benton County's scale: Apr 13 to Oct 23
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Benton County's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Benton County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Benton County, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Benton County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Benton County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Benton County average
How we know this about Benton 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 Benton County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Benton County
When does frost risk typically end in Benton County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Benton County typically lands around Apr 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 May 4.
How long is the growing season in Benton County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Benton County sees about 193 frost-free days — roughly Apr 13 through Oct 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 4 to Oct 9, about 158 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Benton County?
The federal record around Benton County shows 61 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (47), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 miles 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.
Everything above is measured at Benton County's scale — its 5b band and its 193-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Benton 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 Benton County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Benton County's own scale — its own ~193-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 61 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Benton County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Benton County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~193-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Benton CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 61 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Benton County's boundary and the 260,105 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~193-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Benton County sitting wholly inside the Central Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Benton County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Benton 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 Benton County — the ~193 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 Benton County's 260,105 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 61 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 Benton Countyread your own land →