Summitville, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
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 Summitville, 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 Summitville 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 Summitville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Summitville — the short answer
Summitville, Indiana: USDA zone 6a, about 207 days between hard freezes, across 362 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)
- Nov 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~207
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 362 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 Summitville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Summitville's 207-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Summitville
Each reading below is measured for Summitville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSummitville runs about 207 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
MeasuredSummitville 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 Summitville is in
Summitville sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Summitville's own centroid rather than borrowed from Madison County.
What Grows in Summitville
Every plant below cleared Summitville's own zone 6a and its 207-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Summitville?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. 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 Nov 2 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Summitville
Survey cells within 31 miles of Summitville checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 39 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Summitville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Summitville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- STAR SUNOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- CENTRA MET INCBrownfields · 800 ft
- Circle K 2216Underground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- KINGS SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- SUMMITVILLE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- DON HURTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- SUPERIOR TOTE SOLUTIONSBrownfields · 2100 ft
- ANDERSON BANKING COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- Harvest Land Cooperative Incorporated United CooperativeUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- POET BIOREFINING - ALEXANDRIAToxics Release Inventory · 2.6 mi
- POET BIOREFINING - ALEXANDRIABrownfields · 2.6 mi
- CLOCK GRAIN INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Summitville'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 Summitville.
Total Sites
132
within ~10 miles of Summitville
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
4 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Summitville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Summitville
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Summitville, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 4 sites within ~10 miles of Summitville. 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.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Summitville
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 Summitville average
Your land is one point inside Summitville
Everything above resolves to Summitville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 362 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 Summitville Average
Summitville Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Summitville
- ●One soil character for all of Summitville
- ●Frost dates read at Summitville's scale: Apr 9 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Summitville's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Summitville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Summitville, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Summitville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Summitville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Summitville average
How we know this about Summitville
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 Summitville’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 Summitville
When does frost risk typically end in Summitville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Summitville 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 Summitville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Summitville typically arrives around Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 19, so the watching starts about Oct 3 — about 207 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Summitville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Summitville sees about 207 frost-free days — roughly Apr 9 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 30 to Oct 19, about 172 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Summitville?
The federal record around Summitville is a meaningful one — 132 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (81), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Summitville?
From about Oct 3 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 2 (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 2. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Summitville's scale — its 6a band and its 207-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Summitville'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 Summitville’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Summitville's own scale — its own ~207-day season between 28°F freezes, the 362 acres it covers and 132 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Summitville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Summitville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 9 and Nov 2 and the ~207-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 132 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Summitville, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Summitville's boundary and the 362 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~207-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Summitville's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Summitville 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 Summitville's 362 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Madison County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Madison 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 Madison County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Summitville's 362 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Summitville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 362 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 Summitville-wide figureread your own land →
More in Indiana
Wider growing context
What grows across IndianaSummitville sits outside our named growing regions, so Indiana as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides