Oldham County, in Kentucky, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Oldham County lies within 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
Oldham County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Oldham 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 Oldham County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Oldham County — the short answer
Oldham County, Kentucky: USDA zone 6b, about 220 days between hard freezes, across 120K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~220
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 120K 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 6b is Oldham County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Oldham County's 220-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Oldham County
Across a year, Oldham County accumulates about 3,766 growing degree days above 50°F, about 106 more than the middle Kentucky county — ahead of 72 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.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Oldham County
Across Oldham County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Beasley, Crider, and Nicholson are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.5–5.9, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
33%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Oldham County
The USDA soil survey maps 79% of Oldham County as well drained — but another 17% drains differently: 15% moderately well drained, 2% somewhat poorly drained.
Beasley is the most extensive named soil at 33% of mapped acres, then Crider (20%) and Nicholson (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 Oldham County
Each reading below is measured for Oldham 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 Oldham County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Oldham County runs about pH 5.5–5.9, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredOldham County runs about 220 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
MeasuredOldham County 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 Oldham County is in
Oldham County sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Oldham County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Oldham County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 220-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 Oldham 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 Mar 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 31 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 6 — 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 Oldham County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Oldham County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 36 miles off. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly22 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Oldham County
USGS estimates 15,055 lb of Glyphosate on Oldham County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (5,939 lb) and Metolachlor-s (5,316 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 Oldham County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Oldham County — 138 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 4 Superfund sites. 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 Oldham 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 Oldham County
Closest first, across Oldham County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Oldham Co Maintenance GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Oldham Co Area Vocational CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Oldham Co Bus GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- Shaws GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- Buckner ExpressUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- Us Housing Components IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- Station 47Underground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- East & Westbrook Construction Co IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- RIGO COToxics Release Inventory · 1.7 mi
- LaGragne Frg Fescue DeptUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- Rigo CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- The Carriage House Companies IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Oldham 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 Oldham County.
Sources Checked
across Oldham County
Severity Distribution
across Oldham County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Oldham County, two things run higher than the national average across Oldham County — Superfund (4 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (98 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Oldham 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 Oldham County average
Your land is one point inside Oldham County
Everything above resolves to Oldham County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 120K 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 Oldham County Average
Oldham County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Oldham County
- ●One soil character for all of Oldham County
- ●Frost dates read at Oldham County's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Oldham County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Oldham County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Oldham County, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Oldham County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Oldham County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Oldham County average
How we know this about Oldham 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 Oldham County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Oldham County
When does frost risk typically end in Oldham County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Oldham County typically lands around Mar 31, 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 21.
How long is the growing season in Oldham County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Oldham County sees about 220 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 23, about 185 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Oldham County?
The federal record around Oldham County is a meaningful one — 138 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (98), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 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 Oldham County's scale — its 6b band and its 220-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Oldham 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 Oldham County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Oldham County's own scale — its own ~220-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 138 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Oldham County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Oldham County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~220-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Oldham CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 138 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Oldham County's boundary and the 119,868 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~220-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Oldham County sitting wholly inside the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Oldham County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Oldham 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 Oldham County — the ~220 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 Oldham County's 119,868 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 138 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 Oldham Countyread your own land →