Kokomo, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Kokomo, 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 Kokomo 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 Kokomo — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Kokomo — the short answer
Kokomo, Indiana: USDA zone 6a, about 204 days between hard freezes, across 23K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~204
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 23K 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 Kokomo's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Kokomo's 204-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Kokomo
Each reading below is measured for Kokomo itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredKokomo 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
MeasuredKokomo 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 Kokomo is in
Kokomo sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Kokomo's own centroid rather than borrowed from Howard County.
What Grows in Kokomo
Every plant below cleared Kokomo's own zone 6a and its 204-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Kokomo?
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 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 30 — 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 Kokomo
Spotted lanternfly documented 21 miles from Kokomo, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Kokomo
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Kokomo. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- KOKOMO SPRING COBrownfields · 1200 ft
- KOKOMO SPRING COToxics Release Inventory · 1200 ft
- VILLAGE PANTRY 523Underground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- H & R IndustrialUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- KOKOMO STREET DEPARTMENTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- KOKOMO GAS AND FUEL COBrownfields · 1400 ft
- CALDERON BROTHERS VENDING INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- KOKOMO SPRING COMPANY INCORPORATEDToxics Release Inventory · 1600 ft
- One Stop ExpressUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- MARATHON UNIT NO 1232Underground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- DELPHI DELCO ELECTRONICS SYSTEM PLANT 1Toxics Release Inventory · 1900 ft
- DELPHI DELCO ELECTRONICS SYSTEM PLANT 1Brownfields · 1900 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Kokomo'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 Kokomo.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Kokomo
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Kokomo
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Kokomo, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 15 sites within ~10 miles of Kokomo. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Kokomo
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 Kokomo average
Your land is one point inside Kokomo
Everything above resolves to Kokomo as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 23K 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 city 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 Kokomo Average
Kokomo Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Kokomo
- ●One soil character for all of Kokomo
- ●Frost dates read at Kokomo's scale: Apr 9 to Oct 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Kokomo's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Kokomo
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Kokomo, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Kokomo averages can't show:
We read public map data around Kokomo — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Kokomo average
How we know this about Kokomo
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Kokomo’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Kokomo
When does frost risk typically end in Kokomo?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Kokomo typically lands around Apr 9, 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 30.
When is the first frost in Kokomo?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Kokomo typically arrives around Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 16, so the watching starts about Sep 30 — about 204 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Kokomo?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Kokomo sees about 204 frost-free days — roughly Apr 9 through Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 30 to Oct 16, about 169 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Kokomo?
The federal record around Kokomo is a meaningful one — 460 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (251), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.2 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 Kokomo?
From about Sep 30 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 30 (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 30. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Kokomo's scale — its 6a band and its 204-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Kokomo'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 Kokomo’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Kokomo's own scale — its own ~204-day season between 28°F freezes, the 23,474 acres it covers and 460 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Kokomo's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Kokomo's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 9 and Oct 30 and the ~204-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 460 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Kokomo, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Kokomo's boundary and the 23,474 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~204-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Kokomo's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Kokomolydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Kokomo's 23,474 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Howard County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Howard 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 Howard County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Kokomo's 23,474 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Kokomo you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 23,474 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 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 Kokomo-wide figureread your own land →
More in Indiana
Wider growing context
What grows across IndianaKokomo sits outside our named growing regions, so Indiana as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides