Terre Haute, 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.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Terre Haute, 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 Terre Haute 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 Terre Haute — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Terre Haute — the short answer
Terre Haute, Indiana: USDA zone 6a, about 213 days between hard freezes, across 22K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~213
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 22K 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 Terre Haute's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Terre Haute's 213-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Terre Haute
Each reading below is measured for Terre Haute itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredTerre Haute runs about 213 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
MeasuredTerre Haute 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 Terre Haute is in
Terre Haute sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Terre Haute's own centroid rather than borrowed from Vigo County.
What Grows in Terre Haute
Every plant below cleared Terre Haute's own zone 6a and its 213-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Terre Haute?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. 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 Oct 31 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Terre Haute
Survey cells within 31 miles of Terre Haute checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 102 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Terre Haute
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Terre Haute. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Baeslers MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- WOODROW WILSON MIDDLE SCHBrownfields · 800 ft
- BP OASIS NO 3866Underground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- 500 PLATOLENEUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- OLD NATIONAL BANKUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- MEADOWS SCHOOLBrownfields · 2400 ft
- Isbell Car Care Center IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- KROGER #981-021Brownfields · 2500 ft
- KROGER FOOD STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- COURTESY CLEANERSBrownfields · 2600 ft
- KROGER STORE 981Underground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- CVS PHARMACY 8650Brownfields · 2600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Terre Haute'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 Terre Haute.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Terre Haute
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Terre Haute
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Terre Haute, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 17 sites within ~10 miles of Terre Haute. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Terre Haute
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 Terre Haute average
Your land is one point inside Terre Haute
Everything above resolves to Terre Haute as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 22K 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 Terre Haute Average
Terre Haute Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Terre Haute
- ●One soil character for all of Terre Haute
- ●Frost dates read at Terre Haute's scale: Apr 1 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Terre Haute's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Terre Haute
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Terre Haute, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Terre Haute averages can't show:
We read public map data around Terre Haute — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Terre Haute average
How we know this about Terre Haute
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 Terre Haute’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 Terre Haute
When does frost risk typically end in Terre Haute?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Terre Haute 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 Terre Haute?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Terre Haute typically arrives around Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 17, so the watching starts about Oct 1 — about 213 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Terre Haute?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Terre Haute sees about 213 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 17, about 178 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Terre Haute?
The federal record around Terre Haute is a meaningful one — 821 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (396), 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 Terre Haute?
From about Oct 1 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 31 (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 31. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Terre Haute's scale — its 6a band and its 213-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Terre Haute'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 Terre Haute’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Terre Haute's own scale — its own ~213-day season between 28°F freezes, the 22,255 acres it covers and 821 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Terre Haute's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Terre Haute's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Oct 31 and the ~213-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 821 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Terre Haute, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Terre Haute's boundary and the 22,255 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~213-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Terre Haute's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Terre Haute 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 Terre Haute's 22,255 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Vigo County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Vigo 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 Vigo County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Terre Haute's 22,255 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Terre Haute you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 22,255 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 Terre Haute-wide figureread your own land →
More in Indiana
Wider growing context
What grows across IndianaTerre Haute sits outside our named growing regions, so Indiana as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides