Fordsville, Kentucky, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Fordsville, 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 Fordsville 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 Fordsville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Fordsville — the short answer
Fordsville, Kentucky: USDA zone 7a, about 221 days between hard freezes, across 287 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~221
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 287 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 Fordsville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Fordsville's 221-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Fordsville
Each reading below is measured for Fordsville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFordsville runs about 221 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
MeasuredFordsville 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 Fordsville is in
Fordsville sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Fordsville's own centroid rather than borrowed from Ohio County.
What Grows in Fordsville
Every plant below cleared Fordsville's own zone 7a and its 221-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kentucky profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Fordsville?
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 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 29 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 5 — 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 Fordsville
Survey cells within 31 miles of Fordsville checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 98 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Fordsville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Fordsville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Mattingly TireUnderground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- Mattinglys GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- N.O.F. FORDSVILLEToxics Release Inventory · 1800 ft
- N.O.F. FORDSVILLEBrownfields · 1800 ft
- Fordsville Elementary SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- DUNAWAY TIMBER CO INCBrownfields · 2200 ft
- Jumpin Jacks Food Mart No 415Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- Dunaway Timber Co Plant 2Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- The JunctionUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Mattinglys Gulf ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- Thurman & HaleUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- Jetts GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Fordsville'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 Fordsville.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Fordsville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Fordsville
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Fordsville, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Fordsville — PFAS (3 sites) and Nitrate (18 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Fordsville
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 Fordsville average
Your land is one point inside Fordsville
Everything above resolves to Fordsville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 287 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 Fordsville Average
Fordsville Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Fordsville
- ●One soil character for all of Fordsville
- ●Frost dates read at Fordsville's scale: Mar 29 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Fordsville's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Fordsville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Fordsville, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Fordsville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Fordsville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Fordsville average
How we know this about Fordsville
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 Fordsville’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 Fordsville
When does frost risk typically end in Fordsville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Fordsville typically lands around Mar 29, 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 19.
When is the first frost in Fordsville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Fordsville typically arrives around Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 22, so the watching starts about Oct 6 — about 221 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Fordsville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Fordsville sees about 221 frost-free days — roughly Mar 29 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 19 to Oct 22, about 186 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Fordsville?
The federal record around Fordsville is a meaningful one — 59 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (34), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Fordsville?
From about Oct 6 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 5 (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 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Fordsville's scale — its 7a band and its 221-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Fordsville'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 Fordsville’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Fordsville's own scale — its own ~221-day season between 28°F freezes, the 287 acres it covers and 59 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Fordsville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Fordsville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 29 and Nov 5 and the ~221-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 59 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Fordsville, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Fordsville's boundary and the 287 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~221-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Fordsville's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Fordsville 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 Fordsville's 287 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Ohio County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Ohio 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 Ohio County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Fordsville's 287 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Fordsville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 287 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Fordsville-wide figureread your own land →