Tell City, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Tell City, 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 Tell City 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 Tell City — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Tell City — the short answer
Tell City, Indiana: USDA zone 7a, about 240 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~240
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City 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 7a is Tell City's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Tell City's 240-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Tell City
Each reading below is measured for Tell City itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredTell City runs about 240 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
MeasuredTell City sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Tell City is in
Tell City sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Tell City's own centroid rather than borrowed from Perry County.
What Grows in Tell City
Every plant below cleared Tell City's own zone 7a and its 240-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Tell City?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 21 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 16 — 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 Tell City
Survey cells within 31 miles of Tell City checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 112 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Tell City
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Tell City. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- TELL CITY HIGH SCHBrownfields · 1200 ft
- TELL STREET SHELLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- Circle S Mart 82Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- MURPHY USA NO 6982Underground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- DAUBYS BODY SHOPBrownfields · 2000 ft
- Mulzer Crushed Stone IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- RALPH BOERSTE DBA BOERSTE 66Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- United Service Station 6008Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- COCHENOUR CHRYSLER PLYMOUTHUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- GENERAL ELECTRIC INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- NEWS PUBLISHING COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- NEWS PUBLISHING COBrownfields · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Tell City'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 Tell City.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Tell City
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Tell City
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Tell City, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Tell City — Toxics Release Inventory (29 sites) and Nitrate (72 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Tell City
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 Tell City average
Your land is one point inside Tell City
Everything above resolves to Tell City 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 city 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 Tell City Average
Tell City Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Tell City
- ●One soil character for all of Tell City
- ●Frost dates read at Tell City's scale: Mar 21 to Nov 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Tell City's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Tell City
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Tell City, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Tell City averages can't show:
We read public map data around Tell City — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Tell City average
How we know this about Tell City
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Tell City’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Tell City
When does frost risk typically end in Tell City?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Tell City typically lands around Mar 21, 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 11.
When is the first frost in Tell City?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Tell City typically arrives around Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 2, so the watching starts about Oct 17 — about 240 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Tell City?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Tell City sees about 240 frost-free days — roughly Mar 21 through Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 11 to Nov 2, about 205 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Tell City?
The federal record around Tell City is a meaningful one — 228 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (95), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.2 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 Tell City?
From about Oct 17 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 16 (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 16. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Tell City's scale — its 7a band and its 240-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Tell City'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 Tell City’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Tell City's own scale — its own ~240-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,902 acres it covers and 228 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Tell City's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Tell City's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 21 and Nov 16 and the ~240-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 228 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Tell City, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Tell City's boundary and the 2,902 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~240-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Tell City's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Tell City 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 Tell City's 2,902 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Perry County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Perry 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 Perry County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Tell City's 2,902 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Tell City you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,902 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 Tell City-wide figureread your own land →