Salt Lick, Kentucky, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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 Salt Lick, 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 Salt Lick 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 Salt Lick — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Salt Lick — the short answer
Salt Lick, Kentucky: USDA zone 6b, about 218 days between hard freezes, across 500 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~218
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 500 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 Salt Lick's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Salt Lick's 218-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Salt Lick
Each reading below is measured for Salt Lick itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSalt Lick runs about 218 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
MeasuredSalt Lick 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 Salt Lick is in
Salt Lick sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Salt Lick's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Bath County is mostly Interior Plateau. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Salt Lick
Every plant below cleared Salt Lick's own zone 6b and its 218-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kentucky profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Salt Lick?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 4 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 8 — 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 Salt Lick
Survey cells within 31 miles of Salt Lick checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 78 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Salt Lick
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Salt Lick. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Bailey MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- Byrds ChryslerUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- W&W AppliancesUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- Margaret Burchett PropertyUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- E25D0001Nitrate · 750 ft
- Deerfield EstatesUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- Salt Lick BPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- Frank Smith PropertyUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- Mazes IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- Crouchs GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- Earl Shrouts General MerchandiseUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Shortys Quick StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Salt Lick'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 Salt Lick.
Total Sites
150
within ~10 miles of Salt Lick
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
6 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Salt Lick
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Salt Lick
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Salt Lick, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 52 sites within ~10 miles of Salt Lick. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Salt Lick
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 Salt Lick average
Your land is one point inside Salt Lick
Everything above resolves to Salt Lick as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 500 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 Salt Lick Average
Salt Lick Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Salt Lick
- ●One soil character for all of Salt Lick
- ●Frost dates read at Salt Lick's scale: Apr 4 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Salt Lick's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Salt Lick
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Salt Lick, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Salt Lick averages can't show:
We read public map data around Salt Lick — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Salt Lick average
How we know this about Salt Lick
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 Salt Lick’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 Salt Lick
When does frost risk typically end in Salt Lick?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Salt Lick typically lands around Apr 4, 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 25.
When is the first frost in Salt Lick?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Salt Lick typically arrives around Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 25, so the watching starts about Oct 9 — about 218 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Salt Lick?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Salt Lick sees about 218 frost-free days — roughly Apr 4 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 25 to Oct 25, about 183 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Salt Lick?
The federal record around Salt Lick shows 150 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (84), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Salt Lick?
From about Oct 9 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 8 (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 8. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Salt Lick's scale — its 6b band and its 218-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Salt Lick'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 Salt Lick’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Salt Lick's own scale — its own ~218-day season between 28°F freezes, the 500 acres it covers and 150 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Salt Lick's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Salt Lick's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 4 and Nov 8 and the ~218-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 150 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Salt Lick, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Salt Lick's boundary and the 500 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~218-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Salt Lick sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Salt Lick 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 Salt Lick's 500 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Bath County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Bath 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 Bath County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Salt Lick's 500 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Salt Lick you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 500 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 Salt Lick-wide figureread your own land →
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