Markleville, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Markleville, 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 Markleville 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 Markleville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Markleville — the short answer
Markleville, Indiana: USDA zone 6a, about 207 days between hard freezes, across 356 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~207
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 356 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 Markleville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Markleville's 207-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Markleville
Each reading below is measured for Markleville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMarkleville runs about 207 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
MeasuredMarkleville 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 Markleville is in
Markleville sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Markleville's own centroid rather than borrowed from Madison County.
What Grows in Markleville
Every plant below cleared Markleville's own zone 6a and its 207-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Markleville?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 7 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 31 — 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 Markleville
Survey cells within 31 miles of Markleville checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 64 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Markleville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Markleville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Markleville TownUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- A & S PetroleumUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- CHEKER UNIT 7154Underground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- DELCO REMY AMERICA INCToxics Release Inventory · 4.2 mi
- Marathon Unit 2464Underground Storage Tanks · 4.2 mi
- RILEY AND SONS COLLISIONBrownfields · 4.9 mi
- SHENANDOAH SCHOOL SITEUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.2 mi
- Meijer Store & Gas 136Underground Storage Tanks · 5.3 mi
- MEIJER STORE/GAS #136Brownfields · 5.3 mi
- Marathon 1530Underground Storage Tanks · 5.4 mi
- MAGNEQUENCH INTERNATIONAL, INC.Toxics Release Inventory · 5.4 mi
- MAGNEQUENCH INTERNATIONAL, INC.Brownfields · 5.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Markleville'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 Markleville.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Markleville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Markleville
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Markleville, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Markleville — Superfund (7 sites) and PFAS (4 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Markleville
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 Markleville average
Your land is one point inside Markleville
Everything above resolves to Markleville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 356 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 Markleville Average
Markleville Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Markleville
- ●One soil character for all of Markleville
- ●Frost dates read at Markleville's scale: Apr 7 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Markleville's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Markleville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Markleville, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Markleville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Markleville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Markleville average
How we know this about Markleville
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 Markleville’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 Markleville
When does frost risk typically end in Markleville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Markleville typically lands around Apr 7, 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 28.
When is the first frost in Markleville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Markleville typically arrives around Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 17, so the watching starts about Oct 1 — about 207 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Markleville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Markleville sees about 207 frost-free days — roughly Apr 7 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 28 to Oct 17, about 172 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Markleville?
The federal record around Markleville is a meaningful one — 356 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (235), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Markleville?
From about Oct 1 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 31 (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 31. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Markleville's scale — its 6a band and its 207-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Markleville'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 Markleville’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Markleville's own scale — its own ~207-day season between 28°F freezes, the 356 acres it covers and 356 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Markleville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Markleville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 7 and Oct 31 and the ~207-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 356 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Markleville, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Markleville's boundary and the 356 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~207-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Markleville's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Markleville 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 Markleville's 356 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Madison County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Madison 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 Madison County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Markleville's 356 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Markleville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 356 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Markleville-wide figureread your own land →
More in Indiana
Wider growing context
What grows across IndianaMarkleville sits outside our named growing regions, so Indiana as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides