San Pierre, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
These conditions suit cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in San Pierre, 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 San Pierre 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 San Pierre — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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San Pierre — the short answer
San Pierre, Indiana: USDA zone 5b, about 196 days between hard freezes, across 383 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~196
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 383 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 5b is San Pierre's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against San Pierre's 196-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in San Pierre
Each reading below is measured for San Pierre itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSan Pierre runs about 196 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
MeasuredSan Pierre sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b.
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 San Pierre is in
San Pierre sits in the Central Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at San Pierre's own centroid rather than borrowed from Starke County.
What Grows in San Pierre
Every plant below cleared San Pierre's own zone 5b and its 196-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in San Pierre?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 15; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 12 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 25 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
Documented around San Pierre
Spotted lanternfly documented 30 miles from San Pierre, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near San Pierre
Closest first, within ~10 miles of San Pierre. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SAN PIERRE IGA SUPERMARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 350 ft
- BOBEK FARMS INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 400 ft
- ABANDONED GAS STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- SENECA PETROLEUM COMPANY INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- RALSTON PAVEMENT COMPNYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- JASPER-PULASKI STATE NURSERYBrownfields · 2.8 mi
- JASPER PULASKI STATE NURSERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- DUNN'S BRIDGE II SOLARBrownfields · 3.4 mi
- IN DOT Medaryville UnitUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.9 mi
- Ceres Solutions 180Underground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- KANKAKEE VALLEY STEELBrownfields · 4.0 mi
- KANKAKEE VALLEY ELEMENTARY & HIGH SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from San Pierre'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 San Pierre.
Total Sites
78
within ~10 miles of San Pierre
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of San Pierre
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of San Pierre
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around San Pierre, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 53 sites within ~10 miles of San Pierre. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 San Pierre
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 San Pierre average
Your land is one point inside San Pierre
Everything above resolves to San Pierre as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 383 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 San Pierre Average
San Pierre Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across San Pierre
- ●One soil character for all of San Pierre
- ●Frost dates read at San Pierre's scale: Apr 12 to Oct 25
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not San Pierre's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in San Pierre
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in San Pierre, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that San Pierre averages can't show:
We read public map data around San Pierre — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the San Pierre average
How we know this about San Pierre
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 San Pierre’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 San Pierre
When does frost risk typically end in San Pierre?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in San Pierre typically lands around Apr 12, 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 3.
When is the first frost in San Pierre?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in San Pierre typically arrives around Oct 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 11, so the watching starts about Sep 25 — about 196 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in San Pierre?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, San Pierre sees about 196 frost-free days — roughly Apr 12 through Oct 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 3 to Oct 11, about 161 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in San Pierre?
The federal record around San Pierre shows 78 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (53), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 San Pierre?
From about Sep 25 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 25 (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 25. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at San Pierre's scale — its 5b band and its 196-day season. Your yard writes its own version of San Pierre'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 San Pierre’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at San Pierre's own scale — its own ~196-day season between 28°F freezes, the 383 acres it covers and 78 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- San Pierre's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- San Pierre's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 12 and Oct 25 and the ~196-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 78 documented contamination sites on the federal record near San Pierre, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- San Pierre's boundary and the 383 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~196-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at San Pierre's own centroid, the Central Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of San Pierrelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so San Pierre's 383 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Starke County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Starke 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 Starke County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among San Pierre's 383 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of San Pierre you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 383 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 San Pierre-wide figureread your own land →
More in Indiana
Wider growing context
What grows across IndianaSan Pierre sits outside our named growing regions, so Indiana as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides