Tipton 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.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, 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
Tipton County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Tipton 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 Tipton County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Tipton County — the short answer
Tipton County, Indiana: USDA zone 6a, about 208 days between hard freezes, across 167K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~208
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 167K 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 Tipton County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Tipton County's 208-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Tipton County
Across a year, Tipton County accumulates about 3,002 growing degree days above 50°F, about 154 fewer than the middle Indiana county — ahead of 34 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 Tipton County
Across Tipton County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Patton, Del Rey, and Crosby are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a silty clay 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
7%
Hydric soils
61%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Tipton County
The USDA soil survey maps 58% of Tipton County as poorly drained — but another 42% drains differently: 33% somewhat poorly drained, 7% moderately well drained.
Patton is the most extensive named soil at 45% of mapped acres, then Del Rey (20%) and Crosby (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 Tipton County
Each reading below is measured for Tipton 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 Tipton 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 Tipton 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
MeasuredTipton 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
MeasuredTipton 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 Tipton County is in
Tipton 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 Tipton County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Tipton 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 Tipton County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. 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 Nov 3 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Tipton County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Tipton County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 32 miles off. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Tipton County
USGS estimates 155,510 lb of Glyphosate on Tipton County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (61,011 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (60,226 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 Tipton County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Tipton County — 106 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site (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 Tipton 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 Tipton County
Closest first, across Tipton County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- RENEWED PERFORMANCE INCBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- IN GAS TIPTON STABrownfields · 1.0 mi
- TIPTON COUNTY HIGHWAY DEPARTMENTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- PEPL-KOKOMO M&R 2521GBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- INTERNATIONAL PAPER MIDWEST SHEETSBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- BOTTCHER AMERICA CORPBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- TIPTON BRANCHBrownfields · 1.2 mi
- IMPACT COOPERATIVE INCORPORATED SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- ELECTRIC DEPARTMENTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- PAUL HOPKINSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- Steel Parts Manufacturing IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- STEEL PARTS MANUFACTURINGBrownfields · 1.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Tipton 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 Tipton County.
Total Sites
106
across Tipton County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Tipton County
Severity Distribution
across Tipton County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Tipton County, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 8 sites across Tipton County. 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.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Tipton 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 Tipton County average
Your land is one point inside Tipton County
Everything above resolves to Tipton County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 167K 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 Tipton County Average
Tipton County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Tipton County
- ●One soil character for all of Tipton County
- ●Frost dates read at Tipton County's scale: Apr 9 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Tipton County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Tipton County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Tipton County, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Tipton County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Tipton County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Tipton County average
How we know this about Tipton 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 Tipton County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Tipton County
When does frost risk typically end in Tipton County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Tipton 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 Tipton County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Tipton County sees about 208 frost-free days — roughly Apr 9 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 30 to Oct 20, about 173 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Tipton County?
The federal record around Tipton County is a meaningful one — 106 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (53), the nearest Brownfields record about 1.0 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 Tipton County's scale — its 6a band and its 208-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Tipton 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 Tipton County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Tipton County's own scale — its own ~208-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 106 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Tipton County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Tipton 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 Tipton CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 106 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 1.0 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Tipton County's boundary and the 166,746 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~208-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Tipton County sitting wholly inside the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Tipton County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Tipton 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 Tipton 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 Tipton County's 166,746 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 106 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 Tipton Countyread your own land →