Shadeland, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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 Shadeland, 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 Shadeland 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 Shadeland — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Shadeland — the short answer
Shadeland, Indiana: USDA zone 6a, about 204 days between hard freezes, across 17K 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 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~204
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 17K 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 Shadeland's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Shadeland's 204-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Shadeland
Each reading below is measured for Shadeland itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredShadeland 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
MeasuredShadeland 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 Shadeland is in
Shadeland sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Shadeland's own centroid rather than borrowed from Tippecanoe County.
What Grows in Shadeland
Every plant below cleared Shadeland'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 Shadeland?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. 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 29 — 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 Shadeland
Survey cells within 31 miles of Shadeland checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 41 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Shadeland
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Shadeland. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- AL DOWELL EXCAVATINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Freds Mini MartUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- Bellingers Professional Grounds MaintenanceUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- WEST POINT, IN 285Brownfields · 2.7 mi
- Ceres Solutions 285Underground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- CHEMROCK CORPORATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- Evonik CorporationUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- EVONIK DEGUSSA CORP TIPPECANOE LABORATORIESBrownfields · 3.5 mi
- EVONIK DEGUSSA CORP TIPPECANOE LABORATORIESToxics Release Inventory · 3.5 mi
- WALTERS AUTO REPAIR INCBrownfields · 3.6 mi
- LAFAYETTE WATER WORKS, INPFAS · 3.8 mi
- JOHN D CHEESEMANUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Shadeland'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 Shadeland.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Shadeland
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Shadeland
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Shadeland, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 46 sites within ~10 miles of Shadeland. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Shadeland
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 Shadeland average
Your land is one point inside Shadeland
Everything above resolves to Shadeland as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 17K 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 Shadeland Average
Shadeland Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Shadeland
- ●One soil character for all of Shadeland
- ●Frost dates read at Shadeland's scale: Apr 8 to Oct 29
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Shadeland's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Shadeland
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Shadeland, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Shadeland averages can't show:
We read public map data around Shadeland — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Shadeland average
How we know this about Shadeland
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 Shadeland’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 Shadeland
When does frost risk typically end in Shadeland?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Shadeland 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 Shadeland?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Shadeland typically arrives around Oct 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 15, so the watching starts about Sep 29 — about 204 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Shadeland?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Shadeland sees about 204 frost-free days — roughly Apr 8 through Oct 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 29 to Oct 15, about 169 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Shadeland?
The federal record around Shadeland is a meaningful one — 549 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (300), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.9 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 Shadeland?
From about Sep 29 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 29 (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 29. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Shadeland's scale — its 6a band and its 204-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Shadeland'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 Shadeland’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Shadeland's own scale — its own ~204-day season between 28°F freezes, the 17,352 acres it covers and 549 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Shadeland's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Shadeland's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 8 and Oct 29 and the ~204-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 549 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Shadeland, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.9 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Shadeland's boundary and the 17,352 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 Shadeland's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Shadeland 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 Shadeland's 17,352 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Tippecanoe County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Tippecanoe 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 Tippecanoe County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Shadeland's 17,352 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Shadeland you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 17,352 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.9 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 Shadeland-wide figureread your own land →
More in Indiana
Wider growing context
What grows across IndianaShadeland sits outside our named growing regions, so Indiana as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides