Lake Village, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Growers here do well with cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Lake Village, 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 Lake Village 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 Lake Village — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Lake Village — the short answer
Lake Village, Indiana: USDA zone 5b, about 201 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~201
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 5b is Lake Village's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lake Village's 201-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lake Village
Each reading below is measured for Lake Village itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLake Village runs about 201 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
MeasuredLake Village sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b.
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 Lake Village is in
Lake Village sits in the Central Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Lake Village's own centroid rather than borrowed from Newton County.
What Grows in Lake Village
Every plant below cleared Lake Village's own zone 5b and its 201-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lake Village?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 11 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 29 — 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 Lake Village
Survey cells within 31 miles of Lake Village checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 39 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Lake Village
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lake Village. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Ceres Solutions LLPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Marathon Gas StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- CARGILL INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- BINSERVICESBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- BABCOCK FUELS INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Phils Truck StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- NW-23 LAKE VILLAGE, IND.Nitrate · 2.5 mi
- LASALLE FISH & WILDLIFE AREAUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- STUDERS CORNER & MINI MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- ROUSE WELDING AND BODYBrownfields · 3.5 mi
- 31N8W-31.8d1Nitrate · 3.6 mi
- 32N9W-32.2CNitrate · 3.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lake Village'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 Lake Village.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lake Village
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lake Village
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lake Village, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 106 sites within ~10 miles of Lake Village. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Lake Village
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 Lake Village average
Your land is one point inside Lake Village
Everything above resolves to Lake Village as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Lake Village Average
Lake Village Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Lake Village
- ●One soil character for all of Lake Village
- ●Frost dates read at Lake Village's scale: Apr 11 to Oct 29
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lake Village's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lake Village
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lake Village, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lake Village averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lake Village — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lake Village average
How we know this about Lake Village
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 Lake Village’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 Lake Village
When does frost risk typically end in Lake Village?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lake Village typically lands around Apr 11, 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 May 2.
When is the first frost in Lake Village?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lake Village typically arrives around Oct 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 15, so the watching starts about Sep 29 — about 201 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lake Village?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lake Village sees about 201 frost-free days — roughly Apr 11 through Oct 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 2 to Oct 15, about 166 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lake Village?
The federal record around Lake Village is a meaningful one — 146 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (106), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 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 Lake Village?
From about Sep 29 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 29 (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 29. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Lake Village's scale — its 5b band and its 201-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lake Village'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 Lake Village’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Lake Village's own scale — its own ~201-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,524 acres it covers and 146 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lake Village's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lake Village's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 11 and Oct 29 and the ~201-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 146 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lake Village, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lake Village's boundary and the 2,524 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~201-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Lake Village's own centroid, the Central Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Lake Village 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 Lake Village's 2,524 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Newton County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Newton 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 Newton County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Lake Village's 2,524 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lake Village you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,524 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 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 Lake Village-wide figureread your own land →
More in Indiana
Wider growing context
What grows across IndianaLake Village sits outside our named growing regions, so Indiana as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides