Montgomery County, in Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
The conditions favor cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Montgomery County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Montgomery 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 Montgomery County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Montgomery County — the short answer
Montgomery County, Indiana: USDA zone 5b, about 193 days between hard freezes, across 323K acres.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~193
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 323K 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 Montgomery County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Montgomery County's 193-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Montgomery County
Across a year, Montgomery County accumulates about 2,977 growing degree days above 50°F, about 179 fewer than the middle Indiana county — ahead of 33 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 Montgomery County
Across Montgomery County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Starks, Fincastle, and Mahalasville are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally somewhat poorly drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.1–6.5, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B/D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Somewhat poorly drained
Prime farmland
23%
Hydric soils
23%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Montgomery County
The USDA soil survey maps 41% of Montgomery County as somewhat poorly drained — but another 58% drains differently: 21% poorly drained, 21% well drained.
Starks is the most extensive named soil at 11% of mapped acres, then Fincastle (10%) and Mahalasville (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 Montgomery County
Each reading below is measured for Montgomery 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 Montgomery 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 Montgomery County runs about pH 6.1–6.5, 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
MeasuredMontgomery 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
MeasuredMontgomery 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 Montgomery County is in
Montgomery 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 Montgomery County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Montgomery 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 Montgomery 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 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 19 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
Documented around Montgomery County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Montgomery County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 55 miles off. What to watch for.
What gets applied to farmland in Montgomery County
USGS estimates 260,858 lb of Glyphosate on Montgomery County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (95,373 lb) and Acetochlor (67,623 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 Montgomery County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Montgomery County — 303 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 6 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Montgomery County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Montgomery County
Closest first, across Montgomery County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Irving Materials IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- RAYTECH INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONSBrownfields · 1300 ft
- Emro Marketing Speedway 1328Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- CRAWFORDSVILLE HEATING & PLUMBINGSuperfund · 1400 ft
- CLARK OIL 1425Brownfields · 1400 ft
- AT & TBrownfields · 1400 ft
- AT & TUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- MarathonUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- Indiana American Water CompanyUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- HIGH POINT OIL COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- CRAWFORDSVILLE CITY BUILDINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- PRECISION PLASTICS INC INTEGRATEDToxics Release Inventory · 1600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Montgomery 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 Montgomery County.
Total Sites
303
across Montgomery County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
6 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Montgomery County
Severity Distribution
across Montgomery County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Montgomery County, two things run higher than the national average across Montgomery County — Superfund (6 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (25 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Montgomery 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 Montgomery County average
Your land is one point inside Montgomery County
Everything above resolves to Montgomery County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 323K 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 Montgomery County Average
Montgomery County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Montgomery County
- ●One soil character for all of Montgomery County
- ●Frost dates read at Montgomery County's scale: Apr 9 to Oct 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Montgomery County's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Montgomery County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Montgomery County, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Montgomery County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Montgomery County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Montgomery County average
How we know this about Montgomery 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 Montgomery County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Montgomery County
When does frost risk typically end in Montgomery County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Montgomery County typically lands around Apr 9, 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 30.
How long is the growing season in Montgomery County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Montgomery County sees about 193 frost-free days — roughly Apr 9 through Oct 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 30 to Oct 5, about 158 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Montgomery County?
The federal record around Montgomery County is a meaningful one — 303 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (153), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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.
Everything above is measured at Montgomery County's scale — its 5b band and its 193-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Montgomery 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 Montgomery County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Montgomery County's own scale — its own ~193-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 303 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Montgomery County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Montgomery 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 Montgomery CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 303 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
- Montgomery County's boundary and the 322,961 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~193-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Montgomery County sitting wholly inside the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Montgomery 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 Montgomery 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 Montgomery County's 322,961 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 303 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 Montgomery Countyread your own land →