Vermillion County, in Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Vermillion County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Vermillion 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 Vermillion County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Vermillion County — the short answer
Vermillion County, Indiana: USDA zone 6a, about 209 days between hard freezes, across 164K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~209
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 164K 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 Vermillion County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Vermillion County's 209-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Vermillion County
Across a year, Vermillion County accumulates about 3,338 growing degree days above 50°F, about 182 more than the middle Indiana county — ahead of 59 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 Vermillion County
Across Vermillion County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Sable, Hennepin, and Xenia are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.2–6.8, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B/D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
26%
Hydric soils
18%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Vermillion County
The USDA soil survey maps 47% of Vermillion County as well drained — but another 52% drains differently: 23% somewhat poorly drained, 16% poorly drained.
Sable is the most extensive named soil at 10% of mapped acres, then Hennepin (8%) and Xenia (7%).
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 Vermillion County
Each reading below is measured for Vermillion 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 Vermillion County are well drained, in hydrologic group B/D — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Vermillion County runs about pH 6.2–6.8, 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
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 18% of Vermillion County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredVermillion County runs about 209 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
The kind of country Vermillion County is in
Vermillion County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Interior River Valleys and Hills (65%) and Central Corn Belt Plains (35%). 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 Vermillion County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Vermillion County's own USDA zone 6a and its own 209-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 Vermillion 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 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 31 — 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 Vermillion County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Vermillion County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 84 miles off. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly2 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Vermillion County
USGS estimates 95,102 lb of Glyphosate on Vermillion County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (38,416 lb) and Acetochlor (24,908 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 Vermillion County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Vermillion County — 98 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 3 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 Vermillion 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 Vermillion County
Closest first, across Vermillion County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- USCG DANA LORAN STABrownfields · 1.8 mi
- US COAST GUARD LORAN STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- NEWPORT CHEMICAL DEPOTBrownfields · 2.7 mi
- INDOT NEWPORT UNITBrownfields · 2.9 mi
- Swayze Marathon StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- JACKSON FARMSUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- Cargill IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.9 mi
- GREEN ACRES AUTO TRUCK PLAZAUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- DANAS KORNER STOP INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- INTERNATIONAL PAPERBrownfields · 4.5 mi
- INTERNATIONAL PAPERToxics Release Inventory · 4.5 mi
- International Paper CompanyUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Vermillion 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 Vermillion County.
Total Sites
98
across Vermillion County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Vermillion County
Severity Distribution
across Vermillion County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Vermillion County, two things run higher than the national average across Vermillion County — Superfund (3 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (64 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Vermillion 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 Vermillion County average
Your land is one point inside Vermillion County
Everything above resolves to Vermillion County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 164K 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 Vermillion County Average
Vermillion County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Vermillion County
- ●One soil character for all of Vermillion County
- ●Frost dates read at Vermillion County's scale: Apr 5 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Vermillion County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Vermillion County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Vermillion County, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Vermillion County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Vermillion County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Vermillion County average
How we know this about Vermillion 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 Vermillion County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Vermillion County
When does frost risk typically end in Vermillion County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Vermillion County typically lands around Apr 5, 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 26.
How long is the growing season in Vermillion County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Vermillion County sees about 209 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 17, about 174 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Vermillion County?
The federal record around Vermillion County is a meaningful one — 98 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (64), the nearest Brownfields record about 1.8 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 Vermillion County's scale — its 6a band and its 209-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Vermillion 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 Vermillion County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Vermillion County's own scale — its own ~209-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 98 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Vermillion County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Vermillion County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~209-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Vermillion CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 98 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 1.8 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Vermillion County's boundary and the 164,412 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~209-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Vermillion County spans, Interior River Valleys and Hills the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Vermillion County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Vermillion 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 Vermillion County — the ~209 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 Vermillion County's 164,412 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 98 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 Vermillion Countyread your own land →