New Chicago, 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.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in New Chicago, 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 New Chicago 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 New Chicago — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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New Chicago — the short answer
New Chicago, Indiana: USDA zone 6a, about 219 days between hard freezes, across 431 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~219
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 431 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 New Chicago's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against New Chicago's 219-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in New Chicago
Each reading below is measured for New Chicago itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNew Chicago runs about 219 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
MeasuredNew Chicago 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 New Chicago is in
New Chicago sits in the Central Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at New Chicago's own centroid rather than borrowed from Lake County.
What Grows in New Chicago
Every plant below cleared New Chicago's own zone 6a and its 219-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in New Chicago?
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 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 10 — 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 New Chicago
Spotted lanternfly documented 12 miles from New Chicago, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near New Chicago
Closest first, within ~10 miles of New Chicago. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- NEW CHICAGO WATER WORKSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- Gill Petroleum IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- HOBART TOWNSHIP SCHOOLS BUS BARNUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- SELTON HOUSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- MONARCH OIL & SUPPLY COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- Exhaust Masters IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- NATIONWISE AUTOMOBILE PARTSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Speedway 8306Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- CITGOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Luke Oil 232Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- G & T DEVELOPERS INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- DINOS SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from New Chicago'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 New Chicago.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of New Chicago
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of New Chicago
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around New Chicago, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 35 sites within ~10 miles of New Chicago. 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 New Chicago
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 New Chicago average
Your land is one point inside New Chicago
Everything above resolves to New Chicago as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 431 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 New Chicago Average
New Chicago Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across New Chicago
- ●One soil character for all of New Chicago
- ●Frost dates read at New Chicago's scale: Apr 5 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not New Chicago's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in New Chicago
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in New Chicago, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that New Chicago averages can't show:
We read public map data around New Chicago — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the New Chicago average
How we know this about New Chicago
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 New Chicago’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 New Chicago
When does frost risk typically end in New Chicago?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in New Chicago typically lands around Apr 5, 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 26.
When is the first frost in New Chicago?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in New Chicago typically arrives around Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 27, so the watching starts about Oct 11 — about 219 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in New Chicago?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, New Chicago sees about 219 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 27, about 184 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in New Chicago?
The federal record around New Chicago runs heavier than most — 1,443 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (733), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in New Chicago?
From about Oct 11 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 10 (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 10. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at New Chicago's scale — its 6a band and its 219-day season. Your yard writes its own version of New Chicago'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 New Chicago’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at New Chicago's own scale — its own ~219-day season between 28°F freezes, the 431 acres it covers and 1,443 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- New Chicago's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- New Chicago's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Nov 10 and the ~219-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,443 documented contamination sites on the federal record near New Chicago, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- New Chicago's boundary and the 431 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~219-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at New Chicago's own centroid, the Central Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of New Chicagolydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so New Chicago's 431 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Lake County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Lake 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 Lake County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among New Chicago's 431 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of New Chicago you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 431 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 New Chicago-wide figureread your own land →