Melody Hill, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Melody Hill, 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 Melody Hill 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 Melody Hill — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Melody Hill — the short answer
Melody Hill, Indiana: USDA zone 7a, about 228 days between hard freezes, across 876 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~228
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 876 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 7a is Melody Hill's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Melody Hill's 228-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Melody Hill
Each reading below is measured for Melody Hill itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMelody Hill runs about 228 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
MeasuredMelody Hill sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Melody Hill is in
Melody Hill sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Melody Hill's own centroid rather than borrowed from Vanderburgh County.
What Grows in Melody Hill
Every plant below cleared Melody Hill's own zone 7a and its 228-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Melody Hill?
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 Feb 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 9 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Melody Hill
Survey cells within 31 miles of Melody Hill checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 135 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Melody Hill
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Melody Hill. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- VECTREN BERGDOLT POLE YARDBrownfields · 1900 ft
- HUCKS SERVICE STATION 147Underground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- FISHER DYNAMICS EVANSVILLEBrownfields · 2300 ft
- LYONDELLBASELL ADVANCED POLYMERS, INC.Toxics Release Inventory · 2400 ft
- LYONDELLBASELL ADVANCED POLYMERS, INC.Brownfields · 2400 ft
- SURE FINE FOODSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- MASTER MANUFACTURING COMPANY, INC.Toxics Release Inventory · 0.5 mi
- FEDEX NATIONAL LTLBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- Mariner Moto MartUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- QUALEX INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Marathon Unit 2073Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- CVS PHARMACY 0044Brownfields · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Melody Hill'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 Melody Hill.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Melody Hill
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Melody Hill
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •TRI facilities report what they release. Check the wind — downwind beds catch more of it.
Check your specific parcel in Melody Hill
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 Melody Hill average
Your land is one point inside Melody Hill
Everything above resolves to Melody Hill as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 876 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 Melody Hill Average
Melody Hill Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Melody Hill
- ●One soil character for all of Melody Hill
- ●Frost dates read at Melody Hill's scale: Mar 26 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Melody Hill's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Melody Hill
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Melody Hill, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Melody Hill averages can't show:
We read public map data around Melody Hill — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Melody Hill average
How we know this about Melody Hill
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 Melody Hill’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 Melody Hill
When does frost risk typically end in Melody Hill?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Melody Hill typically lands around Mar 26, 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 16.
When is the first frost in Melody Hill?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Melody Hill typically arrives around Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 26, so the watching starts about Oct 10 — about 228 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Melody Hill?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Melody Hill sees about 228 frost-free days — roughly Mar 26 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 16 to Oct 26, about 193 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Melody Hill?
The federal record around Melody Hill is a meaningful one — 1,009 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (582), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.4 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 Melody Hill?
From about Oct 10 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 9 (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 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Melody Hill's scale — its 7a band and its 228-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Melody Hill'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 Melody Hill’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Melody Hill's own scale — its own ~228-day season between 28°F freezes, the 876 acres it covers and 1,009 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Melody Hill's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Melody Hill's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 26 and Nov 9 and the ~228-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,009 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Melody Hill, the closest Brownfields record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Melody Hill's boundary and the 876 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~228-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Melody Hill's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Melody Hill 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 Melody Hill's 876 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Vanderburgh County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Vanderburgh 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 Vanderburgh County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Melody Hill's 876 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Melody Hill you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 876 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Melody Hill-wide figureread your own land →
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