Gaston, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Expect cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Gaston, 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 Gaston 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 Gaston — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Gaston — the short answer
Gaston, Indiana: USDA zone 6a, about 208 days between hard freezes, across 233 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~208
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 233 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 Gaston's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Gaston's 208-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Gaston
Each reading below is measured for Gaston itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredGaston runs about 208 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
MeasuredGaston 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 Gaston is in
Gaston sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Gaston's own centroid rather than borrowed from Delaware County.
What Grows in Gaston
Every plant below cleared Gaston's own zone 6a and its 208-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Gaston?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 8 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 2 — 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 Gaston
Survey cells within 31 miles of Gaston checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 41 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Gaston
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Gaston. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FEROL M HIATTUnderground Storage Tanks · 75 ft
- DEHART CHEVROLET INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 100 ft
- JOHNSON PETROLEUM MARKETING WAREHOUSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 100 ft
- GASTON PANTRYUnderground Storage Tanks · 200 ft
- AMERICAN OIL BULK PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 250 ft
- JOHNSON PETROLEUM MARKETING SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 250 ft
- Indiana Bell Telephone CompanyUnderground Storage Tanks · 350 ft
- JOHNSON PETROLEUM MARKETING BULK PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- NAWQA AG WELL TP14 NEAR GASTON, INNitrate · 2.2 mi
- WCF CORPORATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- GEORGE S COMASUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- MARATHON PIPE LINE LLC ANTHONY STATIONBrownfields · 3.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Gaston'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 Gaston.
Total Sites
285
within ~10 miles of Gaston
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Gaston
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Gaston
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Gaston, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Gaston — PFAS (3 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (187 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.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Gaston
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 Gaston average
Your land is one point inside Gaston
Everything above resolves to Gaston as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 233 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 Gaston Average
Gaston Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Gaston
- ●One soil character for all of Gaston
- ●Frost dates read at Gaston's scale: Apr 8 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Gaston's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Gaston
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Gaston, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Gaston averages can't show:
We read public map data around Gaston — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Gaston average
How we know this about Gaston
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 Gaston’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 Gaston
When does frost risk typically end in Gaston?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Gaston typically lands around Apr 8, 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 29.
When is the first frost in Gaston?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Gaston typically arrives around Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 19, so the watching starts about Oct 3 — about 208 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Gaston?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Gaston sees about 208 frost-free days — roughly Apr 8 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 29 to Oct 19, about 173 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Gaston?
The federal record around Gaston is a meaningful one — 285 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (187), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Gaston?
From about Oct 3 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 2 (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 2. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Gaston's scale — its 6a band and its 208-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Gaston'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 Gaston’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Gaston's own scale — its own ~208-day season between 28°F freezes, the 233 acres it covers and 285 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Gaston's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Gaston's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 8 and Nov 2 and the ~208-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 285 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Gaston, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Gaston's boundary and the 233 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~208-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Gaston's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Gaston 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 Gaston's 233 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Delaware County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Delaware 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 Delaware County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Gaston's 233 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Gaston you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 233 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Gaston-wide figureread your own land →
More in Indiana
Wider growing context
What grows across IndianaGaston sits outside our named growing regions, so Indiana as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides