Eckerty, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
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.
Even in Eckerty, 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 Eckerty 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 Eckerty — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Eckerty — the short answer
Eckerty, Indiana: USDA zone 6b, about 204 days between hard freezes, across 769 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~204
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 769 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 Eckerty's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Eckerty's 204-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Eckerty
Each reading below is measured for Eckerty itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredEckerty runs about 204 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
MeasuredEckerty 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 Eckerty is in
Eckerty sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Eckerty's own centroid rather than borrowed from Crawford County.
What Grows in Eckerty
Every plant below cleared Eckerty's own zone 6b and its 204-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Eckerty?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 7 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 28 — 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 Eckerty
Survey cells within 31 miles of Eckerty checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 95 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Eckerty
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Eckerty. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PAPPYS CONVENIENT STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Eckerty Y General StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- EAZY ELMOS TRADIN POSTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- Poor Boys Country StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- 64 MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- Mulzer Crushed StoneUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- FELKERS GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- JP STEMPLY GENERAL STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- WILDRIDGE RV RESORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- PATOKA STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.4 mi
- Circle A Food Mart 106Underground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
- AR COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Eckerty'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 Eckerty.
Total Sites
49
within ~10 miles of Eckerty
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Eckerty
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Eckerty
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Eckerty, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 38 sites within ~10 miles of Eckerty. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Eckerty
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 Eckerty average
Your land is one point inside Eckerty
Everything above resolves to Eckerty as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 769 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 Eckerty Average
Eckerty Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Eckerty
- ●One soil character for all of Eckerty
- ●Frost dates read at Eckerty's scale: Apr 7 to Oct 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Eckerty's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Eckerty
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Eckerty, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Eckerty averages can't show:
We read public map data around Eckerty — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Eckerty average
How we know this about Eckerty
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 Eckerty’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 Eckerty
When does frost risk typically end in Eckerty?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Eckerty typically lands around Apr 7, 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 28.
When is the first frost in Eckerty?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Eckerty typically arrives around Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 14, so the watching starts about Sep 28 — about 204 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Eckerty?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Eckerty sees about 204 frost-free days — roughly Apr 7 through Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 28 to Oct 14, about 169 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Eckerty?
The federal record around Eckerty is a meaningful one — 49 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (38), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Eckerty?
From about Sep 28 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 Oct 28 (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 Oct 28. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Eckerty's scale — its 6b band and its 204-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Eckerty'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 Eckerty’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Eckerty's own scale — its own ~204-day season between 28°F freezes, the 769 acres it covers and 49 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Eckerty's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Eckerty's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 7 and Oct 28 and the ~204-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 49 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Eckerty, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Eckerty's boundary and the 769 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~204-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Eckerty's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Eckerty 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 Eckerty's 769 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Crawford County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Crawford 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 Crawford County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Eckerty's 769 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Eckerty you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 769 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Eckerty-wide figureread your own land →