Harrison Lake, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Harrison Lake, 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 Harrison Lake 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 Harrison Lake — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Harrison Lake — the short answer
Harrison Lake, Indiana: USDA zone 6b, about 219 days between hard freezes, across 170 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 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~219
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 170 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 Harrison Lake's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Harrison Lake's 219-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Harrison Lake
Each reading below is measured for Harrison Lake itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHarrison Lake runs about 219 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
MeasuredHarrison Lake 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 Harrison Lake is in
Harrison Lake sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Harrison Lake's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Bartholomew County is mostly Eastern Corn Belt Plains. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Harrison Lake
Every plant below cleared Harrison Lake's own zone 6b and its 219-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Harrison Lake?
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 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 6 — 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 Harrison Lake
Survey cells within 31 miles of Harrison Lake checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 63 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Harrison Lake
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Harrison Lake. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HARRISON LAKE COUNTRY CLUBUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- RONNIES BODY SHOP & WRECKERUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Laceys County MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- GARY NIENABERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- GRANDVIEW LOT OWNERSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- CVS PHARMACY 6792Brownfields · 2.8 mi
- INDIANA BELL TELEPHONE COMPANY 342Underground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- CARL FOX CABINETSBrownfields · 3.0 mi
- JAY C FOOD STORE #8Brownfields · 3.1 mi
- DJ CLEANERSBrownfields · 3.1 mi
- COLUMBUS FIRE DEPARTMENT STATION 5Underground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
- CW Transport IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Harrison Lake'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 Harrison Lake.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Harrison Lake
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Harrison Lake
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Harrison Lake, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 39 sites within ~10 miles of Harrison Lake. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
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 Harrison Lake
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 Harrison Lake average
Your land is one point inside Harrison Lake
Everything above resolves to Harrison Lake as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 170 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 Harrison Lake Average
Harrison Lake Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Harrison Lake
- ●One soil character for all of Harrison Lake
- ●Frost dates read at Harrison Lake's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Harrison Lake's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Harrison Lake
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Harrison Lake, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Harrison Lake averages can't show:
We read public map data around Harrison Lake — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Harrison Lake average
How we know this about Harrison Lake
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 Harrison Lake’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 Harrison Lake
When does frost risk typically end in Harrison Lake?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Harrison Lake 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 Harrison Lake?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Harrison Lake typically arrives around Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 23, so the watching starts about Oct 7 — about 219 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Harrison Lake?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Harrison Lake sees about 219 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 23, about 184 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Harrison Lake?
The federal record around Harrison Lake runs heavier than most — 408 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (221), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Harrison Lake?
From about Oct 7 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 6 (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 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Harrison Lake's scale — its 6b band and its 219-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Harrison Lake'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 Harrison Lake’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Harrison Lake's own scale — its own ~219-day season between 28°F freezes, the 170 acres it covers and 408 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Harrison Lake's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Harrison Lake's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 6 and the ~219-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 408 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Harrison Lake, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Harrison Lake's boundary and the 170 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~219-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Harrison Lake sits in the Interior Plateau — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Harrison Lake 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 Harrison Lake's 170 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Bartholomew County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Bartholomew 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 Bartholomew County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Harrison Lake's 170 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Harrison Lake you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 170 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Harrison Lake-wide figureread your own land →