Williams, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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 Williams, 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 Williams 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 Williams — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Williams — the short answer
Williams, Indiana: USDA zone 6b, about 212 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 4
- 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
- ~212
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 Williams's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Williams's 212-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Williams
Each reading below is measured for Williams itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWilliams runs about 212 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
MeasuredWilliams 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 Williams is in
Williams sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Williams's own centroid rather than borrowed from Lawrence County.
What Grows in Williams
Every plant below cleared Williams's own zone 6b and its 212-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Williams?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 4 (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. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Williams
Survey cells within 31 miles of Williams checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 92 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Williams
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Williams. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SOUTH LAWRENCE UTILITIESPFAS · 2200 ft
- NORTH LAWRENCE WATER AUTHORITYPFAS · 2200 ft
- MAIN POST OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- WILLIAMS DAM FISHING AREAUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- BILLS 76Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- GOODSEYS BODY SHOPBrownfields · 4.4 mi
- FAYETTEVILLE STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
- IN DOT Paoli Sub District Shoals Unit 2Underground Storage Tanks · 6.3 mi
- B & B Country StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.3 mi
- SIGMA STEEL SHOPBrownfields · 6.4 mi
- Sphalerite Occurrence Z81Mining · 7.1 mi
- Speedway 5492Underground Storage Tanks · 7.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Williams'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 Williams.
Total Sites
154
within ~10 miles of Williams
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Williams
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Williams
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Williams, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Williams — PFAS (4 sites) and Superfund (3 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Williams
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 Williams average
Your land is one point inside Williams
Everything above resolves to Williams as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Williams Average
Williams Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Williams
- ●One soil character for all of Williams
- ●Frost dates read at Williams's scale: Apr 4 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Williams's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Williams
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Williams, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Williams averages can't show:
We read public map data around Williams — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Williams average
How we know this about Williams
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 Williams’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 Williams
When does frost risk typically end in Williams?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Williams typically lands around Apr 4, 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 25.
When is the first frost in Williams?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Williams 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 212 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Williams?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Williams sees about 212 frost-free days — roughly Apr 4 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 25 to Oct 19, about 177 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Williams?
The federal record around Williams is a meaningful one — 154 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (100), the nearest PFAS record about 0.4 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 Williams?
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 Williams's scale — its 6b band and its 212-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Williams'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 Williams’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Williams's own scale — its own ~212-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,165 acres it covers and 154 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Williams's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Williams's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 4 and Nov 2 and the ~212-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 154 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Williams, the closest PFAS record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Williams's boundary and the 1,165 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~212-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Williams's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Williams 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 Williams's 1,165 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Lawrence County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Lawrence 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 Lawrence County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Williams's 1,165 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Williams you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,165 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest PFAS record about 0.4 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 Williams-wide figureread your own land →