Notre Dame, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Notre Dame, 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 Notre Dame 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 Notre Dame — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Notre Dame — the short answer
Notre Dame, Indiana: USDA zone 6a, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 756 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~200
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 756 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 Notre Dame's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Notre Dame's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Notre Dame
Each reading below is measured for Notre Dame itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNotre Dame runs about 200 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
MeasuredNotre Dame 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 Notre Dame is in
Notre Dame sits in the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Notre Dame's own centroid rather than borrowed from St. Joseph County.
What Grows in Notre Dame
Every plant below cleared Notre Dame's own zone 6a and its 200-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Notre Dame?
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 19; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 16 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 2 — 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 Notre Dame
Spotted lanternfly documented 5 miles from Notre Dame, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Notre Dame
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Notre Dame. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- WALGREENS #15598Brownfields · 1600 ft
- SISTERS OF HOLY CROSS-ST. MARYS COLLEGEPFAS · 1800 ft
- UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAMEPFAS · 1800 ft
- Notre Dame UniversityUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME DU LACBrownfields · 2200 ft
- Indiana University School of Medicine South BendUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- HSIRI THERAPEUTICS LLCBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- F CUBED LLCBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- NANOSYNTEKBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- INDIANA UNIVERSITY SOUTH BENDBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- LOGAN CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Michiana Telecasting CorporationUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Notre Dame'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 Notre Dame.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Notre Dame
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Notre Dame
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Notre Dame, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Notre Dame — Toxics Release Inventory (116 sites) and Superfund (23 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Notre Dame
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 Notre Dame average
Your land is one point inside Notre Dame
Everything above resolves to Notre Dame as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 756 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 Notre Dame Average
Notre Dame Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Notre Dame
- ●One soil character for all of Notre Dame
- ●Frost dates read at Notre Dame's scale: Apr 16 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Notre Dame's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Notre Dame
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Notre Dame, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Notre Dame averages can't show:
We read public map data around Notre Dame — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Notre Dame average
How we know this about Notre Dame
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 Notre Dame’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 Notre Dame
When does frost risk typically end in Notre Dame?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Notre Dame typically lands around Apr 16, 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 7.
When is the first frost in Notre Dame?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Notre Dame typically arrives around Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 19, so the watching starts about Oct 3 — about 200 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Notre Dame?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Notre Dame sees about 200 frost-free days — roughly Apr 16 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 7 to Oct 19, about 165 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Notre Dame?
The federal record around Notre Dame runs heavier than most — 1,620 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (827), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.3 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 Notre Dame?
From about Oct 3 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 2 (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 2. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Notre Dame's scale — its 6a band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Notre Dame'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 Notre Dame’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Notre Dame's own scale — its own ~200-day season between 28°F freezes, the 756 acres it covers and 1,620 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Notre Dame's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Notre Dame's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 16 and Nov 2 and the ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,620 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Notre Dame, the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Notre Dame's boundary and the 756 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~200-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Notre Dame's own centroid, the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Notre Damelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Notre Dame's 756 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom St. Joseph County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom St. Joseph 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 St. Joseph County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Notre Dame's 756 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Notre Dame you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 756 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 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 Notre Dame-wide figureread your own land →