Selma, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Selma, 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 Selma 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 Selma — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Selma — the short answer
Selma, Indiana: USDA zone 6a, about 204 days between hard freezes, across 573 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~204
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 573 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 Selma's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Selma's 204-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Selma
Each reading below is measured for Selma itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSelma runs about 204 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
MeasuredSelma 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 Selma is in
Selma sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Selma's own centroid rather than borrowed from Delaware County.
What Grows in Selma
Every plant below cleared Selma's own zone 6a and its 204-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Selma?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 30 — 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 Selma
Survey cells within 31 miles of Selma checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 51 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Selma
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Selma. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DELAWARE COUNTY FARM BUREAU COOPERATIVE INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- LARRY PHILLIPSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- H&N MACHINE DIVBrownfields · 2500 ft
- NUTRIEN AG SOLUTIONS 4196Brownfields · 0.5 mi
- JOHNNY MORRIS CHEVROLETUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- JOE CARRAWAYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- SELMA WIRE PLTBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- Delaware County Highway Department MuncieUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- NAWQA AG WELL FA25 AT SMITHFIELD, INNitrate · 1.7 mi
- INDIANA AMERICAN WATER - MUNCIEPFAS · 2.1 mi
- DELAWARE CO BRIDGE #161Brownfields · 2.8 mi
- Village Pantry 5515Underground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Selma'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 Selma.
Total Sites
476
within ~10 miles of Selma
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
13 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Selma
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Selma
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Selma, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Selma — Superfund (13 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (43 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Selma
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 Selma average
Your land is one point inside Selma
Everything above resolves to Selma as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 573 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 Selma Average
Selma Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Selma
- ●One soil character for all of Selma
- ●Frost dates read at Selma's scale: Apr 9 to Oct 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Selma's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Selma
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Selma, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Selma averages can't show:
We read public map data around Selma — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Selma average
How we know this about Selma
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 Selma’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 Selma
When does frost risk typically end in Selma?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Selma typically lands around Apr 9, 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 30.
When is the first frost in Selma?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Selma typically arrives around Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 16, so the watching starts about Sep 30 — about 204 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Selma?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Selma sees about 204 frost-free days — roughly Apr 9 through Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 30 to Oct 16, about 169 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Selma?
The federal record around Selma is a meaningful one — 476 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (275), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Selma?
From about Sep 30 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 30 (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 30. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Selma's scale — its 6a band and its 204-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Selma'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 Selma’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Selma's own scale — its own ~204-day season between 28°F freezes, the 573 acres it covers and 476 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Selma's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Selma's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 9 and Oct 30 and the ~204-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 476 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Selma, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Selma's boundary and the 573 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~204-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Selma's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Selma 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 Selma's 573 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Delaware County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Delaware 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 Delaware County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Selma's 573 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Selma you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 573 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Selma-wide figureread your own land →
More in Indiana
Wider growing context
What grows across IndianaSelma sits outside our named growing regions, so Indiana as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides