Shelby County, in Kentucky, 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.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Shelby County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Shelby 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 Shelby County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Shelby County — the short answer
Shelby County, Kentucky: USDA zone 6b, about 207 days between hard freezes, across 243K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~207
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 243K 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 Shelby County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Shelby County's 207-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Shelby County
Across a year, Shelby County accumulates about 3,645 growing degree days above 50°F, about 15 fewer than the middle Kentucky county — ahead of 56 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 Shelby County
Across Shelby County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Lowell, Eden, and Shelbyville are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.0–6.2, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
36%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Shelby County
The USDA soil survey maps 88% of Shelby County as well drained — but another 12% drains differently: 11% moderately well drained.
Lowell is the most extensive named soil at 33% of mapped acres, then Eden (18%) and Shelbyville (15%).
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 Shelby County
Each reading below is measured for Shelby 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 Shelby 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 Shelby County runs about pH 6.0–6.2, 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
Season length
MeasuredShelby County runs about 207 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
MeasuredShelby 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 Shelby County is in
Shelby 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 Shelby County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Shelby County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 207-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 Shelby County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 30 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Shelby County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Shelby County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 38 miles off. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly2 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Shelby County
USGS estimates 62,383 lb of Glyphosate on Shelby County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (18,638 lb) and Metolachlor-s (14,603 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 Shelby County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Shelby County — 194 documented sites across 6 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 Shelby 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 Shelby County
Closest first, across Shelby County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Wickes Lumber Co 123Underground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- Shelby Co Schools Maintenance GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Wakefields GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- KATAYAMA AMERICAN COMPANY INC.Toxics Release Inventory · 1.6 mi
- KATAYAMA AMERICAN COMPANY INC.Brownfields · 1.6 mi
- CUSTOM INDUSTRIAL SERVICES INCSuperfund · 1.7 mi
- Public Works City Of ShelbyvilleUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- AMCOR PACKAGING, INC.Toxics Release Inventory · 1.8 mi
- AMCOR PACKAGING, INC.Brownfields · 1.8 mi
- C H S 2Underground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- Welch Investment Properties LLC DBA Nickel StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- FICOSA N AMERICA CORPToxics Release Inventory · 1.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Shelby 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 Shelby County.
Total Sites
194
across Shelby County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Shelby County
Severity Distribution
across Shelby County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Shelby County, two things run higher than the national average across Shelby County — Toxics Release Inventory (21 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (129 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 Shelby 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 Shelby County average
Your land is one point inside Shelby County
Everything above resolves to Shelby County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 243K 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 Shelby County Average
Shelby County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Shelby County
- ●One soil character for all of Shelby County
- ●Frost dates read at Shelby County's scale: Apr 6 to Oct 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Shelby County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Shelby County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Shelby County, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Shelby County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Shelby County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Shelby County average
How we know this about Shelby 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 Shelby County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Shelby County
When does frost risk typically end in Shelby County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Shelby County typically lands around Apr 6, 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 27.
How long is the growing season in Shelby County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Shelby County sees about 207 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 16, about 172 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Shelby County?
The federal record around Shelby County is a meaningful one — 194 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (129), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Shelby County's scale — its 6b band and its 207-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Shelby 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 Shelby County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Shelby County's own scale — its own ~207-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 194 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Shelby County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Shelby County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~207-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Shelby CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 194 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Shelby County's boundary and the 243,069 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~207-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Shelby County sitting wholly inside the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Shelby County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Shelby 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 Shelby County — the ~207 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 Shelby County's 243,069 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 194 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 Shelby Countyread your own land →