Boone County, in Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Boone County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Boone 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 Boone County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Boone County — the short answer
Boone County, Indiana: USDA zone 6a, about 208 days between hard freezes, across 271K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~208
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 271K 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 6a is Boone County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Boone County's 208-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Boone County
Across a year, Boone County accumulates about 3,153 growing degree days above 50°F, about 3 fewer than the middle Indiana county — ahead of 45 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 Boone County
Across Boone County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Treaty, Miami, and Fincastle are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally somewhat poorly drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.3–7.2, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B/D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Somewhat poorly drained
Prime farmland
12%
Hydric soils
37%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Boone County
The USDA soil survey maps 41% of Boone County as somewhat poorly drained — but another 57% drains differently: 38% poorly drained, 14% moderately well drained.
Treaty is the most extensive named soil at 24% of mapped acres, then Miami (10%) and Fincastle (9%).
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 Boone County
Each reading below is measured for Boone 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 Boone 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 Boone County runs about pH 6.3–7.2, 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
MeasuredBoone County runs about 208 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
MeasuredBoone County 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 Boone County is in
Boone County sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Boone County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Boone County's own USDA zone 6a and its own 208-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 Boone County?
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 Nov 2 — 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 Boone County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Boone County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 47 miles off. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle1 documented records
- monarch butterfly92 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Boone County
USGS estimates 189,484 lb of Glyphosate on Boone County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (71,336 lb) and Atrazine (69,641 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 Boone County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Boone County — 276 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 7 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Boone 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 Boone County
Closest first, across Boone County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- LEBANON COMMUNITY SCHOOL CORPORATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- BOONE COUNTY CHAMBER OF COMMERCEUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- CVS PHARMACY 6666Brownfields · 850 ft
- MODERN CLEANERSBrownfields · 950 ft
- ART COLLECTIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- MCCLURE OIL CORPORATION 52Underground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- ROYAL CLEANERSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- LEBANON CHICAGO STREET WATER PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- Rubber Duckie Pool SupplyUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- KINCAID AUTO SALESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- Phillips 66Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- Speedway 6365Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Boone 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 Boone County.
Sources Checked
across Boone County
Severity Distribution
across Boone County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Boone County, two things run higher than the national average across Boone County — Superfund (7 sites) and PFAS (3 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Boone 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 Boone County average
Your land is one point inside Boone County
Everything above resolves to Boone County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 271K 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 Boone County Average
Boone County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Boone County
- ●One soil character for all of Boone County
- ●Frost dates read at Boone County's scale: Apr 8 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Boone County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Boone County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Boone County, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Boone County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Boone County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Boone County average
How we know this about Boone 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 Boone County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Boone County
When does frost risk typically end in Boone County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Boone County 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.
How long is the growing season in Boone County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Boone County sees about 208 frost-free days — roughly Apr 8 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 29 to Oct 19, about 173 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Boone County?
The federal record around Boone County runs heavier than most — 276 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (163), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Boone County's scale — its 6a band and its 208-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Boone 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 Boone County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Boone County's own scale — its own ~208-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 276 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Boone County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Boone County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~208-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Boone CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 276 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile outFederal environmental registers
- Boone County's boundary and the 270,644 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~208-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Boone County sitting wholly inside the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Boone County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Boone 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 Boone County — the ~208 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 Boone County's 270,644 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 276 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 Boone Countyread your own land →