Walesboro, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
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 Walesboro, 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 Walesboro 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 Walesboro — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Walesboro — the short answer
Walesboro, Indiana: USDA zone 6b, about 216 days between hard freezes, across 147 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~216
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 147 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 Walesboro's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Walesboro's 216-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Walesboro
Each reading below is measured for Walesboro itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWalesboro runs about 216 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
MeasuredWalesboro 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 Walesboro is in
Walesboro sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Walesboro's own centroid rather than borrowed from Bartholomew County.
What Grows in Walesboro
Every plant below cleared Walesboro's own zone 6b and its 216-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Walesboro?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 5; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 4 — 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 Walesboro
Survey cells within 31 miles of Walesboro checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 56 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Walesboro
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Walesboro. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Flos DinerUnderground Storage Tanks · 200 ft
- CUIUnderground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- AK TUBE LLCToxics Release Inventory · 2600 ft
- CLEVELAND CLIFFS TUBULAR COMPONENTSToxics Release Inventory · 2600 ft
- Walesboro AirportUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- AK TUBE LLCBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- CUMMINS, INC.Brownfields · 1.3 mi
- Faurecia Emissions Control Technologies USAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- FAURECIA EMISSIONS CONTROL TECHNOLOGIESToxics Release Inventory · 1.4 mi
- FAURECIA EMISSIONS CONTROL TECHNOLOGIES USA LLCToxics Release Inventory · 1.4 mi
- FAURECIA EMISSIONS CONTROL TECHNOLOGIESBrownfields · 1.4 mi
- JOHNSON OIL COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Walesboro'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 Walesboro.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Walesboro
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Walesboro
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Walesboro, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 39 sites within ~10 miles of Walesboro. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Walesboro
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 Walesboro average
Your land is one point inside Walesboro
Everything above resolves to Walesboro as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 147 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 Walesboro Average
Walesboro Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Walesboro
- ●One soil character for all of Walesboro
- ●Frost dates read at Walesboro's scale: Apr 2 to Nov 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Walesboro's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Walesboro
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Walesboro, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Walesboro averages can't show:
We read public map data around Walesboro — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Walesboro average
How we know this about Walesboro
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 Walesboro’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 Walesboro
When does frost risk typically end in Walesboro?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Walesboro typically lands around Apr 2, 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 23.
When is the first frost in Walesboro?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Walesboro typically arrives around Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 21, so the watching starts about Oct 5 — about 216 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Walesboro?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Walesboro sees about 216 frost-free days — roughly Apr 2 through Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 23 to Oct 21, about 181 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Walesboro?
The federal record around Walesboro runs heavier than most — 414 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (221), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Walesboro?
From about Oct 5 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 4 (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 4. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Walesboro's scale — its 6b band and its 216-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Walesboro'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 Walesboro’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Walesboro's own scale — its own ~216-day season between 28°F freezes, the 147 acres it covers and 414 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Walesboro's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Walesboro's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 2 and Nov 4 and the ~216-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 414 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Walesboro, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Walesboro's boundary and the 147 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~216-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Walesboro's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Walesboro 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 Walesboro's 147 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Bartholomew County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Bartholomew 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 Bartholomew County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Walesboro's 147 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Walesboro you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 147 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Walesboro-wide figureread your own land →