Dunlap, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Dunlap, 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 Dunlap 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 Dunlap — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Dunlap — the short answer
Dunlap, Indiana: USDA zone 6a, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~200
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 6a is Dunlap's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Dunlap's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Dunlap
Each reading below is measured for Dunlap itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDunlap runs about 200 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
MeasuredDunlap 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 Dunlap is in
Dunlap sits in the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Dunlap's own centroid rather than borrowed from Elkhart County.
What Grows in Dunlap
Every plant below cleared Dunlap's own zone 6a and its 200-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Dunlap?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 18; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 15 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 1 — 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 Dunlap
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Dunlap, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Dunlap
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Dunlap. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DUNLAP CITGOUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- CONCORD TOWNSHIP FIRE DEPARTMENT INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- CONCORD MARATHON SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- DANS BODY SHOP INCBrownfields · 1300 ft
- RED D MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- MASTEN SERVICE STORE INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- CONCORD MALLUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- MONTGOMERY WARD AND CO INCBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- SHARPLINE AUTO BODYBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- CHECKER SERVICE STATION 7074Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- MEIJER STORE/GAS #127Brownfields · 0.9 mi
- Meijer Store & Gas 127Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Dunlap'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 Dunlap.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Dunlap
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Dunlap
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Dunlap, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Dunlap — Toxics Release Inventory (259 sites) and Superfund (24 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Dunlap
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 Dunlap average
Your land is one point inside Dunlap
Everything above resolves to Dunlap as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Dunlap Average
Dunlap Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Dunlap
- ●One soil character for all of Dunlap
- ●Frost dates read at Dunlap's scale: Apr 15 to Nov 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Dunlap's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Dunlap
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Dunlap, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Dunlap averages can't show:
We read public map data around Dunlap — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Dunlap average
How we know this about Dunlap
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 Dunlap’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 Dunlap
When does frost risk typically end in Dunlap?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Dunlap typically lands around Apr 15, 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 May 6.
When is the first frost in Dunlap?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Dunlap typically arrives around Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 18, so the watching starts about Oct 2 — about 200 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Dunlap?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Dunlap sees about 200 frost-free days — roughly Apr 15 through Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 6 to Oct 18, about 165 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Dunlap?
The federal record around Dunlap runs heavier than most — 1,656 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (613), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Dunlap?
From about Oct 2 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 1 (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 1. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Dunlap's scale — its 6a band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Dunlap'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 Dunlap’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Dunlap's own scale — its own ~200-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,140 acres it covers and 1,656 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Dunlap's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Dunlap's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 15 and Nov 1 and the ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,656 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Dunlap, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Dunlap's boundary and the 3,140 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~200-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Dunlap's own centroid, the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Dunlaplydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Dunlap's 3,140 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Elkhart County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Elkhart 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 Elkhart County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Dunlap's 3,140 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Dunlap you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,140 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Dunlap-wide figureread your own land →
More in Indiana
Wider growing context
What grows across IndianaDunlap sits outside our named growing regions, so Indiana as a whole is its closest context here.