French Lick, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in French Lick, 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 French Lick 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 French Lick — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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French Lick — the short answer
French Lick, Indiana: USDA zone 6b, about 209 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- 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
- ~209
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 French Lick's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against French Lick's 209-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in French Lick
Each reading below is measured for French Lick itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFrench Lick 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
Winter hardiness
MeasuredFrench Lick 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 French Lick is in
French Lick sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at French Lick's own centroid rather than borrowed from Orange County.
What Grows in French Lick
Every plant below cleared French Lick's own zone 6b and its 209-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in French Lick?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (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. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around French Lick
Survey cells within 31 miles of French Lick checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 92 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near French Lick
Closest first, within ~10 miles of French Lick. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- WHITES QUALITY AUTOMOTIVE SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- FRENCH LICK POLICE DEPARTMENTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- Springs Valley Elementary SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- PLUTO CORPORATIONToxics Release Inventory · 2000 ft
- FRENCH LICK SPRINGS RESORT WATER TREATMENTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Marathon Unit 1535Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- Hucks 289Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- FRENCH LICK FURNITUREToxics Release Inventory · 0.5 mi
- PLUTO CORP PLANT #2Toxics Release Inventory · 0.5 mi
- Jasper Seating Company Incorporated Plant 2Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- SPRINGS VALLEY MANUFACTURINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- Valley MarathonUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from French Lick'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 French Lick.
Total Sites
80
within ~10 miles of French Lick
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
8 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of French Lick
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of French Lick
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around French Lick, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of French Lick — PFAS (3 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (8 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in French Lick
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 French Lick average
Your land is one point inside French Lick
Everything above resolves to French Lick as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 French Lick Average
French Lick Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across French Lick
- ●One soil character for all of French Lick
- ●Frost dates read at French Lick's scale: Apr 6 to Nov 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not French Lick's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in French Lick
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in French Lick, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that French Lick averages can't show:
We read public map data around French Lick — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the French Lick average
How we know this about French Lick
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 French Lick’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 French Lick
When does frost risk typically end in French Lick?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in French Lick typically lands around Apr 6, 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 27.
When is the first frost in French Lick?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in French Lick 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 209 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in French Lick?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, French Lick sees about 209 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 18, about 174 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in French Lick?
The federal record around French Lick shows 80 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (49), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 French Lick?
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 French Lick's scale — its 6b band and its 209-day season. Your yard writes its own version of French Lick'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 French Lick’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at French Lick's own scale — its own ~209-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,167 acres it covers and 80 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- French Lick's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- French Lick's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 6 and Nov 1 and the ~209-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 80 documented contamination sites on the federal record near French Lick, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- French Lick's boundary and the 1,167 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~209-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at French Lick's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around French Lick 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 French Lick's 1,167 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Orange County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Orange 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 Orange County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among French Lick's 1,167 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of French Lick you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,167 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 French Lick-wide figureread your own land →