La Center, Kentucky, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in La Center, 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 La Center 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 La Center — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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La Center — the short answer
La Center, Kentucky: USDA zone 7a, about 240 days between hard freezes, across 387 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~240
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 387 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 La Center's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against La Center's 240-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in La Center
Each reading below is measured for La Center itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLa Center 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
Winter hardiness
MeasuredLa Center 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 La Center is in
La Center sits in the Mississippi Valley Loess Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at La Center's own centroid rather than borrowed from Ballard County.
What Grows in La Center
Every plant below cleared La Center's own zone 7a and its 240-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kentucky profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in La Center?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. 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.
What's on the federal record near La Center
Closest first, within ~10 miles of La Center. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Ballard Rural Telephone CoopUnderground Storage Tanks · 350 ft
- Powells Service & Muffler CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- Ballard Co Cooperative ExtensionUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- Mitchells GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- Roy Steele PropertyUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- Soper Oil Company OfficeUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- Jennys 66Underground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- Phillips 66 Co 06387Underground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- La Center Feed MillUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- The RunwayUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- Paul Hankins Ford IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- Jack & Keith Graves PropertyUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from La Center'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 La Center.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of La Center
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of La Center
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around La Center, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of La Center — Nitrate (90 sites) and Superfund (4 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in La Center
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 La Center average
Your land is one point inside La Center
Everything above resolves to La Center as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 387 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 La Center Average
La Center Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across La Center
- ●One soil character for all of La Center
- ●Frost dates read at La Center's scale: Mar 20 to Nov 15
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not La Center's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in La Center
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in La Center, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that La Center averages can't show:
We read public map data around La Center — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the La Center average
How we know this about La Center
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 La Center’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 La Center
When does frost risk typically end in La Center?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in La Center 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.
When is the first frost in La Center?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in La Center typically arrives around Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 1, so the watching starts about Oct 16 — about 240 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in La Center?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, La Center 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 La Center?
The federal record around La Center is a meaningful one — 184 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (90), 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 La Center?
From about Oct 16 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 15 (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 15. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at La Center's scale — its 7a band and its 240-day season. Your yard writes its own version of La Center'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 La Center’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at La Center's own scale — its own ~240-day season between 28°F freezes, the 387 acres it covers and 184 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- La Center's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- La Center's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 20 and Nov 15 and the ~240-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 184 documented contamination sites on the federal record near La Center, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- La Center's boundary and the 387 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 ecoregion at La Center's own centroid, the Mississippi Valley Loess PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so La Center's 387 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Ballard County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Ballard 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 Ballard County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among La Center's 387 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of La Center you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 387 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 La Center-wide figureread your own land →