Ballard County, in Kentucky, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
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.
Ballard County lies within the Jackson Purchase (Far Western Kentucky) and the Ohio River Valley — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Ballard County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Ballard County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Ballard County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Ballard County — the short answer
Ballard County, Kentucky: USDA zone 7a, about 240 days between hard freezes, across 158K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~240
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 158K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 Ballard County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Ballard County's 240-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Ballard County
Across a year, Ballard County accumulates about 4,236 growing degree days above 50°F, about 576 more than the middle Kentucky county — ahead of 111 of Kentucky’s 120 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Winter banks about 2,425 hours below 45°F. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Ballard County
Across Ballard County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Grenada, Loring, and Feliciana are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.9–6.5, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Moderately well drained
Prime farmland
27%
Hydric soils
16%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Ballard County
The USDA soil survey maps 39% of Ballard County as moderately well drained — but another 53% drains differently: 22% well drained, 19% somewhat poorly drained.
Grenada is the most extensive named soil at 25% of mapped acres, then Loring (11%) and Feliciana (9%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Ballard County
Each reading below is measured for Ballard County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Ballard County are moderately well drained, in hydrologic group B — roughly the middle of the drainage range.
This is close to the middle most vegetables prefer: it holds enough water to carry a crop between rains without staying waterlogged. The catch is that a wet spring or a low corner can still tip it soggy.
Plant on the site as-is for most crops, but keep the lowest, slowest-draining beds for moisture-tolerant plantings.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Ballard County runs about pH 5.9–6.5, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 16% of Ballard County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredBallard County 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
The kind of country Ballard County is in
Ballard County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Mississippi Valley Loess Plains (69%) and Interior River Valleys and Hills (29%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Ballard County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Ballard County's own USDA zone 7a and its own 240-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Kentucky profile.
Is it too late to plant in Ballard County?
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 20; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 20 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 15 — 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 Ballard County
- Japanese beetle2 documented records
- monarch butterfly2 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Ballard County
USGS estimates 137,241 lb of Glyphosate on Ballard County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (51,610 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (51,155 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Ballard County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Ballard County — 159 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Ballard County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Ballard County
Closest first, across Ballard County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- I03D0905Nitrate · 1.3 mi
- Ralph Miller PropertyUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- Hagood Oil Co IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- Ballard County Board of Education Bus GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- CutmartUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- Allreds Service StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- J & J Auto ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- Mike Soper FarmsUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- Kentucky Utilities Co StoreroomUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- I03D0906Nitrate · 2.0 mi
- Bettys Corner CafeUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- Veach Oil & GasUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Ballard County'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 Ballard County.
Total Sites
159
across Ballard County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Ballard County
Severity Distribution
across Ballard County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Ballard County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 92 sites across Ballard County. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Ballard County
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 Ballard County average
Your land is one point inside Ballard County
Everything above resolves to Ballard County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 158K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Ballard County Average
Ballard County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Ballard County
- ●One soil character for all of Ballard County
- ●Frost dates read at Ballard County's scale: Mar 20 to Nov 15
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Ballard County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Ballard County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Ballard County, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Ballard County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Ballard County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Ballard County average
How we know this about Ballard County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Ballard County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Ballard County
When does frost risk typically end in Ballard County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Ballard County typically lands around Mar 20, 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 10.
How long is the growing season in Ballard County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Ballard County sees about 240 frost-free days — roughly Mar 20 through Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 10 to Nov 1, about 205 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Ballard County?
The federal record around Ballard County is a meaningful one — 159 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (92), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.3 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.
Everything above is measured at Ballard County's scale — its 7a band and its 240-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Ballard County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Kentucky's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Ballard County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Ballard County's own scale — its own ~240-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 159 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Ballard County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Ballard County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~240-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Ballard CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 159 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 1.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Ballard County's boundary and the 158,141 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 2 ecoregions Ballard County spans, Mississippi Valley Loess Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Ballard County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Ballard County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Kentucky grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Kentucky
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Ballard County — the ~240 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Ballard County's 158,141 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 159 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Ballard Countyread your own land →