Ogden Dunes, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, blueberry, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Ogden Dunes, 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 Ogden Dunes 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 Ogden Dunes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Ogden Dunes — the short answer
Ogden Dunes, Indiana: USDA zone 6a, about 225 days between hard freezes, across 476 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~225
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 476 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 Ogden Dunes's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Ogden Dunes's 225-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Ogden Dunes
Each reading below is measured for Ogden Dunes itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredOgden Dunes runs about 225 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
MeasuredOgden Dunes 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 Ogden Dunes is in
Ogden Dunes sits in the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Ogden Dunes's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Porter County is mostly Central Corn Belt Plains. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Ogden Dunes
Every plant below cleared Ogden Dunes's own zone 6a and its 225-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Ogden Dunes?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 6; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 3 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 14 — 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 Ogden Dunes
Spotted lanternfly documented 7 miles from Ogden Dunes, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Ogden Dunes
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Ogden Dunes. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- USGS DUNES WELL 244D 125 FTNitrate · 0.6 mi
- USGS DUNES WELL 244S - 65 FT AT OGDEN DUNES INNitrate · 0.6 mi
- NW-37 OGDEN DUNES, IND.Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- Indiana American Water Northwest Ogden Dunes Water Treatment PlantUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- J & S MARATHONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- USGS DUNES WELL 232 45 FT NR GARY INNitrate · 0.9 mi
- USGS DUNES WELL 230-58 FT NR PORTAGE INNitrate · 0.9 mi
- USGS DUNES WELL 230D 128 FT NR GARY INNitrate · 0.9 mi
- USGS DUNES WELL 230.G 24 FT NR PORTAGE INNitrate · 0.9 mi
- ROBERT L FRUMUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- US Steel MidwestUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- OGDEN DUNES W T INDNitrate · 1.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Ogden Dunes'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 Ogden Dunes.
Total Sites
1,037
within ~10 miles of Ogden Dunes
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
14 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Ogden Dunes
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Ogden Dunes
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Ogden Dunes, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 14 sites within ~10 miles of Ogden Dunes. 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.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Ogden Dunes
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 Ogden Dunes average
Your land is one point inside Ogden Dunes
Everything above resolves to Ogden Dunes as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 476 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 Ogden Dunes Average
Ogden Dunes Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Ogden Dunes
- ●One soil character for all of Ogden Dunes
- ●Frost dates read at Ogden Dunes's scale: Apr 3 to Nov 14
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Ogden Dunes's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Ogden Dunes
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Ogden Dunes, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Ogden Dunes averages can't show:
We read public map data around Ogden Dunes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Ogden Dunes average
How we know this about Ogden Dunes
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 Ogden Dunes’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 Ogden Dunes
When does frost risk typically end in Ogden Dunes?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Ogden Dunes typically lands around Apr 3, 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 24.
When is the first frost in Ogden Dunes?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Ogden Dunes typically arrives around Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 31, so the watching starts about Oct 15 — about 225 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Ogden Dunes?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Ogden Dunes sees about 225 frost-free days — roughly Apr 3 through Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 24 to Oct 31, about 190 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Ogden Dunes?
The federal record around Ogden Dunes is a meaningful one — 1,037 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (470), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.6 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 Ogden Dunes?
From about Oct 15 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 14 (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 14. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Ogden Dunes's scale — its 6a band and its 225-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Ogden Dunes'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 Ogden Dunes’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Ogden Dunes's own scale — its own ~225-day season between 28°F freezes, the 476 acres it covers and 1,037 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Ogden Dunes's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Ogden Dunes's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 3 and Nov 14 and the ~225-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,037 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Ogden Dunes, the closest Nitrate record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Ogden Dunes's boundary and the 476 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~225-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Ogden Dunes sits in the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift Plains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Ogden Duneslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Ogden Dunes's 476 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Porter County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Porter 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 Porter County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Ogden Dunes's 476 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Ogden Dunes you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 476 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.6 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 Ogden Dunes-wide figureread your own land →