Speedway, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Speedway, 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 Speedway 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 Speedway — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Speedway — the short answer
Speedway, Indiana: USDA zone 6b, about 222 days between hard freezes, across 3K 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 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~222
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 Speedway's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Speedway's 222-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Speedway
Each reading below is measured for Speedway itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSpeedway runs about 222 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
MeasuredSpeedway 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 Speedway is in
Speedway sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Speedway's own centroid rather than borrowed from Marion County.
What Grows in Speedway
Every plant below cleared Speedway's own zone 6b and its 222-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Speedway?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. 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 9 — 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 Speedway
Survey cells within 31 miles of Speedway checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 64 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Speedway
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Speedway. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- INDY BODY WERKSBrownfields · 1100 ft
- 500 AUTOMOTIVE SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- JIFFY LUBEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Former Gas StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- WELL 8 SPEEDWAY, INDNitrate · 2600 ft
- SPEEDWAY WATER WORKSPFAS · 0.5 mi
- Speedway TownUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Coca Cola Bottling Company Consolidated dba CCBCC Operations LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- SPEEDWAY SCHOOLSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- COCA COLA BOTTLING COToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- COCA COLA BOTTLING COBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- TAYLOR-WHARTONToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Speedway'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 Speedway.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Speedway
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Speedway
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Speedway, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Speedway — Superfund (55 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (242 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 Speedway
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 Speedway average
Your land is one point inside Speedway
Everything above resolves to Speedway as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Speedway Average
Speedway Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Speedway
- ●One soil character for all of Speedway
- ●Frost dates read at Speedway's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Speedway's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Speedway
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Speedway, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Speedway averages can't show:
We read public map data around Speedway — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Speedway average
How we know this about Speedway
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 Speedway’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 Speedway
When does frost risk typically end in Speedway?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Speedway 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 Speedway?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Speedway typically arrives around Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 26, so the watching starts about Oct 10 — about 222 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Speedway?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Speedway sees about 222 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 26, about 187 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Speedway?
The federal record around Speedway runs heavier than most — 3,394 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,687), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Speedway?
From about Oct 10 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 9 (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 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Speedway's scale — its 6b band and its 222-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Speedway'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 Speedway’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Speedway's own scale — its own ~222-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,063 acres it covers and 3,394 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Speedway's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Speedway's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 9 and the ~222-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 3,394 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Speedway, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Speedway's boundary and the 3,063 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~222-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Speedway's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Speedway 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 Speedway's 3,063 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Marion County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Marion 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 Marion County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Speedway's 3,063 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Speedway you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,063 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 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 Speedway-wide figureread your own land →
More in Indiana
Wider growing context
What grows across IndianaSpeedway sits outside our named growing regions, so Indiana as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides