Prairie Creek, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
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 Prairie Creek, 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 Prairie Creek 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 Prairie Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Prairie Creek — the short answer
Prairie Creek, Indiana: USDA zone 6b, about 216 days between hard freezes, across 141 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~216
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 141 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 6b is Prairie Creek's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Prairie Creek's 216-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Prairie Creek
Each reading below is measured for Prairie Creek itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPrairie Creek runs about 216 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
MeasuredPrairie Creek sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Prairie Creek is in
Prairie Creek sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Prairie Creek's own centroid rather than borrowed from Vigo County.
What Grows in Prairie Creek
Every plant below cleared Prairie Creek's own zone 6b and its 216-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Prairie Creek?
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 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 3 — 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 Prairie Creek
Survey cells within 31 miles of Prairie Creek checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 117 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Prairie Creek
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Prairie Creek. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- T10N R10W S27 SESESE NR MIDDLETOWN, INNitrate · 500 ft
- JORDAN JUNCTIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- PATSY STRAINUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- PRAIRIE CREEK MARKET & SUNOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- T10N R10W S36 NWNWNW NR PRAIRIE CRK, INNitrate · 1.1 mi
- T10N R10W S22 SESWSE NR HUTTON, INNitrate · 1.1 mi
- T10N R10W S24 SESESW LAPORTE, INNitrate · 1.8 mi
- PRAIRIE CREEK PARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- T10N R10W S29 NWSENE NR HUTTON, INNitrate · 2.3 mi
- T10N R10W S20 NENWSW NR HUTTON, INNitrate · 3.2 mi
- WHITE CONSTRUCTIONToxics Release Inventory · 3.3 mi
- T10N R9W S32 SESWSE NR FARMERSBG, INNitrate · 3.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Prairie Creek'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 Prairie Creek.
Total Sites
172
within ~10 miles of Prairie Creek
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Prairie Creek
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Prairie Creek
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Prairie Creek, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Prairie Creek — Nitrate (80 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (11 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Prairie Creek
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 Prairie Creek average
Your land is one point inside Prairie Creek
Everything above resolves to Prairie Creek as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 141 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 Prairie Creek Average
Prairie Creek Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Prairie Creek
- ●One soil character for all of Prairie Creek
- ●Frost dates read at Prairie Creek's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Prairie Creek's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Prairie Creek
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Prairie Creek, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Prairie Creek averages can't show:
We read public map data around Prairie Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Prairie Creek average
How we know this about Prairie Creek
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 Prairie Creek’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 Prairie Creek
When does frost risk typically end in Prairie Creek?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Prairie Creek typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
When is the first frost in Prairie Creek?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Prairie Creek typically arrives around Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 20, so the watching starts about Oct 4 — about 216 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Prairie Creek?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Prairie Creek sees about 216 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 20, about 181 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Prairie Creek?
The federal record around Prairie Creek is a meaningful one — 172 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (80), the nearest Nitrate 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 Prairie Creek?
From about Oct 4 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 3 (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 3. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Prairie Creek's scale — its 6b band and its 216-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Prairie Creek'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 Prairie Creek’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Prairie Creek's own scale — its own ~216-day season between 28°F freezes, the 141 acres it covers and 172 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Prairie Creek's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Prairie Creek's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 3 and the ~216-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 172 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Prairie Creek, the closest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Prairie Creek's boundary and the 141 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~216-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Prairie Creek's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Prairie Creek 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 Prairie Creek's 141 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Vigo County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Vigo 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 Vigo County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Prairie Creek's 141 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Prairie Creek you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 141 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate 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 Prairie Creek-wide figureread your own land →
More in Indiana
Wider growing context
What grows across IndianaPrairie Creek sits outside our named growing regions, so Indiana as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides