Rainsville, 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 Rainsville, 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 Rainsville 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 Rainsville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Rainsville — the short answer
Rainsville, Indiana: USDA zone 6a, about 199 days between hard freezes, across 132 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~199
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 132 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 Rainsville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Rainsville's 199-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Rainsville
Each reading below is measured for Rainsville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredRainsville runs about 199 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredRainsville 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 Rainsville is in
Rainsville sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Rainsville's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Warren County is mostly Central Corn Belt Plains. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Rainsville
Every plant below cleared Rainsville's own zone 6a and its 199-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Rainsville?
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 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 8 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 24 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Late in the year the fall bench takes over — quick greens, radishes, and garlic that repays you next summer.
Documented around Rainsville
Survey cells within 31 miles of Rainsville checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 55 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Rainsville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Rainsville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BLANKENSHIP GENERAL STORE INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- POLAND DAIRY FARMCAFO · 3.1 mi
- H & H TRANSPORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- McCoskey 66 Service StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- PINE VILLAGE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- RIVERSIDE 66Underground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
- JORDAN CREEK WIND ENERGY CENTERBrownfields · 4.8 mi
- IN DOT Carbondale UnitUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.0 mi
- INDOT CARBONDALE UNITBrownfields · 5.1 mi
- MCFALLSUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.8 mi
- Keiths ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.9 mi
- BOSWELL TOWNUnderground Storage Tanks · 8.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Rainsville'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 Rainsville.
Total Sites
77
within ~10 miles of Rainsville
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Rainsville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Rainsville
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Rainsville, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 51 sites within ~10 miles of Rainsville. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Rainsville
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 Rainsville average
Your land is one point inside Rainsville
Everything above resolves to Rainsville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 132 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 Rainsville Average
Rainsville Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Rainsville
- ●One soil character for all of Rainsville
- ●Frost dates read at Rainsville's scale: Apr 8 to Oct 24
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Rainsville's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Rainsville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Rainsville, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Rainsville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Rainsville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Rainsville average
How we know this about Rainsville
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 Rainsville’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 Rainsville
When does frost risk typically end in Rainsville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Rainsville typically lands around Apr 8, 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 29.
When is the first frost in Rainsville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Rainsville typically arrives around Oct 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 10, so the watching starts about Sep 24 — about 199 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Rainsville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Rainsville sees about 199 frost-free days — roughly Apr 8 through Oct 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 29 to Oct 10, about 164 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Rainsville?
The federal record around Rainsville shows 77 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (51), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Rainsville?
From about Sep 24 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 Oct 24 (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 Oct 24. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Rainsville's scale — its 6a band and its 199-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Rainsville'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 Rainsville’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Rainsville's own scale — its own ~199-day season between 28°F freezes, the 132 acres it covers and 77 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Rainsville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Rainsville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 8 and Oct 24 and the ~199-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 77 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Rainsville, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Rainsville's boundary and the 132 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~199-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Rainsville sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Rainsville 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 Rainsville's 132 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Warren County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Warren 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 Warren County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Rainsville's 132 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Rainsville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 132 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Rainsville-wide figureread your own land →
More in Indiana
Wider growing context
What grows across IndianaRainsville sits outside our named growing regions, so Indiana as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides