Decker, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Decker, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Decker lot. 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 Decker — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Decker — the short answer
Decker, Indiana: USDA zone 6b, about 218 days between hard freezes, across 120 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~218
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 120 acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 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 6b is Decker's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Decker's 218-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Decker
Each reading below is measured for Decker itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDecker runs about 218 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
MeasuredDecker sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Decker is in
Decker sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Decker's own centroid rather than borrowed from Knox County.
What Grows in Decker
Every plant below cleared Decker's own zone 6b and its 218-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Decker?
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 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 5 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Decker
Survey cells within 31 miles of Decker checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 140 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Decker
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Decker. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- JOLEE & LINDA CULP PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- IDEM PESTICIDE SURVEY WELL 222Nitrate · 2500 ft
- Pick & Pump PlazaUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- NAWQA AG WELL GL20 NEAR IONA, INNitrate · 2.2 mi
- IW-75 VINCENNES, IND.Nitrate · 2.2 mi
- KIRKS ELEVATORUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- HARTSHORNE ASSOCIATES ENGINEERING INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- Chuckles 9Underground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
- SOUTHGATE MARATHONUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
- MCCORMICK FARMS INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
- MARY KRUGUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- SIP-1 VINCENNES, IND.Nitrate · 4.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Decker'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 Decker.
Total Sites
84
within ~10 miles of Decker
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
7 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Decker
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Decker
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Decker, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 7 sites within ~10 miles of Decker. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Decker
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 Decker average
Your land is one point inside Decker
Everything above resolves to Decker as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 120 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 town 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 local average.
Your Lot vs the Decker Average
Decker Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Decker
- ●One soil character for all of Decker
- ●Frost dates read at Decker's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Decker's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Decker
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Decker, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Decker averages can't show:
We read public map data around Decker — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Decker average
How we know this about Decker
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Decker’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Decker
When does frost risk typically end in Decker?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Decker typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
When is the first frost in Decker?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Decker typically arrives around Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 22, so the watching starts about Oct 6 — about 218 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Decker?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Decker sees about 218 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 22, about 183 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Decker?
The federal record around Decker shows 84 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (45), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Decker?
From about Oct 6 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Nov 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Nov 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Decker's scale — its 6b band and its 218-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Decker's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Decker’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Decker's own scale — its own ~218-day season between 28°F freezes, the 120 acres it covers and 84 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Decker's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Decker's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 5 and the ~218-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 84 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Decker, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Decker's boundary and the 120 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~218-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Decker's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Decker checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Decker's 120 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Knox County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Knox County
- The growing challenges every Indiana grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Indiana
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Knox County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Decker's 120 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Decker you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 120 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Decker-wide figureread your own land →
More in Indiana
Wider growing context
What grows across IndianaDecker sits outside our named growing regions, so Indiana as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides