Glencoe, 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.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Glencoe, 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 Glencoe 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 Glencoe — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Glencoe — the short answer
Glencoe, Kentucky: USDA zone 6b, about 219 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~219
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 1K 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 6b is Glencoe's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Glencoe's 219-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Glencoe
Each reading below is measured for Glencoe itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredGlencoe runs about 219 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
MeasuredGlencoe 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 Glencoe is in
Glencoe sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Glencoe's own centroid rather than borrowed from Gallatin County.
What Grows in Glencoe
Every plant below cleared Glencoe's own zone 6b and its 219-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kentucky profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Glencoe?
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 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (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. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Glencoe
Spotted lanternfly documented 1 miles from Glencoe, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Glencoe
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Glencoe. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Silgas IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- Glencoe Public Utility StaUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Ruth MotorsUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Exit 62 Truck StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- Elmo Baker PropertyUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Cowboys #107Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- Napoleon GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- Folsoms StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.2 mi
- HINKLE CONTRACTING CORP/SPARTA ASPHALTBrownfields · 4.2 mi
- Waits MineMining · 4.3 mi
- Youngs Carry Out (Dannys)Underground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- Valley Service StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Glencoe'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 Glencoe.
Total Sites
103
within ~10 miles of Glencoe
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
6 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Glencoe
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Glencoe
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Glencoe, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 64 sites within ~10 miles of Glencoe. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Glencoe
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 Glencoe average
Your land is one point inside Glencoe
Everything above resolves to Glencoe as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Glencoe Average
Glencoe Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Glencoe
- ●One soil character for all of Glencoe
- ●Frost dates read at Glencoe's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Glencoe's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Glencoe
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Glencoe, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Glencoe averages can't show:
We read public map data around Glencoe — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Glencoe average
How we know this about Glencoe
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 Glencoe’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 Glencoe
When does frost risk typically end in Glencoe?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Glencoe typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
When is the first frost in Glencoe?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Glencoe typically arrives around Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 23, so the watching starts about Oct 7 — about 219 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Glencoe?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Glencoe sees about 219 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 23, about 184 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Glencoe?
The federal record around Glencoe shows 103 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (64), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 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 Glencoe?
From about Oct 7 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 6 (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 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Glencoe's scale — its 6b band and its 219-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Glencoe'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 Glencoe’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Glencoe's own scale — its own ~219-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,127 acres it covers and 103 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Glencoe's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Glencoe's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 6 and the ~219-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 103 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Glencoe, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Glencoe's boundary and the 1,127 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~219-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Glencoe's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Glencoelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Glencoe's 1,127 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Gallatin County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Gallatin 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 Gallatin County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Glencoe's 1,127 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Glencoe you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,127 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 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 Glencoe-wide figureread your own land →
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