Bardstown, Kentucky, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Bardstown, 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 Bardstown 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 Bardstown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Bardstown — the short answer
Bardstown, Kentucky: USDA zone 7a, about 225 days between hard freezes, across 8K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~225
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 8K 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 Bardstown's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bardstown's 225-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Bardstown
Each reading below is measured for Bardstown itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBardstown runs about 225 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
MeasuredBardstown 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 Bardstown is in
Bardstown sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Bardstown's own centroid rather than borrowed from Nelson County.
What Grows in Bardstown
Every plant below cleared Bardstown's own zone 7a and its 225-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kentucky profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Bardstown?
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 Feb 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 8 — 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 Bardstown
Survey cells within 31 miles of Bardstown checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 69 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Bardstown
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Bardstown. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HEAVEN HILL SPRINGS DISTILLERYBrownfields · 1400 ft
- Kroger Fuel L-408Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- Speedy Mart #9Underground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- F18C0011Nitrate · 2100 ft
- Dominos Pizza IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- Ray A Parrish & SonUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- G B A PrintingUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- Convenient Food Mart 30106Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- Speedway SuperAmerica LLC 9647Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- Bardstown Laundry & Dry CleanerUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- NEWCOMB OIL CO LLC - BARDSTOWN PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 2500 ft
- Val Coomes Service CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bardstown'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 Bardstown.
Total Sites
159
within ~10 miles of Bardstown
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
15 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Bardstown
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Bardstown
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bardstown, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Bardstown — Toxics Release Inventory (15 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (117 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.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Bardstown
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 Bardstown average
Your land is one point inside Bardstown
Everything above resolves to Bardstown as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 8K 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 Bardstown Average
Bardstown Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Bardstown
- ●One soil character for all of Bardstown
- ●Frost dates read at Bardstown's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bardstown's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Bardstown
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bardstown, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bardstown averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bardstown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bardstown average
How we know this about Bardstown
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 Bardstown’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 Bardstown
When does frost risk typically end in Bardstown?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bardstown typically lands around Mar 28, 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 18.
When is the first frost in Bardstown?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Bardstown typically arrives around Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 25, so the watching starts about Oct 9 — about 225 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Bardstown?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bardstown sees about 225 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Oct 25, about 190 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bardstown?
The federal record around Bardstown shows 159 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (117), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Bardstown?
From about Oct 9 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 8 (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 8. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Bardstown's scale — its 7a band and its 225-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bardstown'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 Bardstown’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Bardstown's own scale — its own ~225-day season between 28°F freezes, the 7,748 acres it covers and 159 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bardstown's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bardstown's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 8 and the ~225-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 159 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Bardstown, the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Bardstown's boundary and the 7,748 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~225-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Bardstown's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Bardstown 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 Bardstown's 7,748 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Nelson County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Nelson County
- The growing challenges every Kentucky grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Kentucky
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Nelson County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bardstown's 7,748 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Bardstown you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 7,748 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 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 Bardstown-wide figureread your own land →
More in Kentucky
Wider growing context
What grows across KentuckyBardstown sits outside our named growing regions, so Kentucky as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides