Mays, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
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 Mays, 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 Mays 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 Mays — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Mays — the short answer
Mays, Indiana: USDA zone 6a, about 203 days between hard freezes, across 99 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)
- Oct 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~203
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 99 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 Mays's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Mays's 203-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Mays
Each reading below is measured for Mays itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMays runs about 203 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
MeasuredMays 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 Mays is in
Mays sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Mays's own centroid rather than borrowed from Rush County.
What Grows in Mays
Every plant below cleared Mays's own zone 6a and its 203-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Mays?
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 Oct 28 — 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 Mays
Survey cells within 31 miles of Mays checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 59 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Mays
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Mays. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MAYS ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- DOUGLAS BODY SHOPBrownfields · 600 ft
- Harvest Land Cooperative Incorporated Mays LPUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- MTC IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- NAWQA AG WELL TP22 NEAR SEXTON, INNitrate · 3.2 mi
- WILLIAMS MARATHONUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- Howard HouchinsUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- Harvest Land Cooperative Incorporated Dunreith Agriculture CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- GW PIERCE AUTO PARTS INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.2 mi
- Indiana Soldiers Sailors Childrens HomeUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.7 mi
- NAWQA AG WELL FA18 NEAR RUSHVILLE, INNitrate · 5.0 mi
- KEITH BECKNERUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Mays'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 Mays.
Total Sites
144
within ~10 miles of Mays
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Mays
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Mays
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Mays, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Mays — Superfund (3 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (105 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Mays
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 Mays average
Your land is one point inside Mays
Everything above resolves to Mays as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 99 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 Mays Average
Mays Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Mays
- ●One soil character for all of Mays
- ●Frost dates read at Mays's scale: Apr 8 to Oct 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Mays's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Mays
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Mays, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Mays averages can't show:
We read public map data around Mays — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mays average
How we know this about Mays
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 Mays’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 Mays
When does frost risk typically end in Mays?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Mays 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 Mays?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Mays typically arrives around Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 14, so the watching starts about Sep 28 — about 203 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Mays?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Mays sees about 203 frost-free days — roughly Apr 8 through Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 29 to Oct 14, about 168 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Mays?
The federal record around Mays is a meaningful one — 144 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (105), 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 Mays?
From about Sep 28 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 28 (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 28. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Mays's scale — its 6a band and its 203-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Mays'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 Mays’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Mays's own scale — its own ~203-day season between 28°F freezes, the 99 acres it covers and 144 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Mays's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Mays's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 8 and Oct 28 and the ~203-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 144 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Mays, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Mays's boundary and the 99 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~203-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Mays's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Mays 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 Mays's 99 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Rush County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Rush 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 Rush County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Mays's 99 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Mays you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 99 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 Mays-wide figureread your own land →
More in Indiana
Wider growing context
What grows across IndianaMays sits outside our named growing regions, so Indiana as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides