Austintown, Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Austintown, 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 Austintown 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 Austintown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Austintown — the short answer
Austintown, Ohio: USDA zone 6a, about 189 days between hard freezes, across 7K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~189
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 7K 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 6a is Austintown's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Austintown's 189-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Austintown
Each reading below is measured for Austintown itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredAustintown runs about 189 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredAustintown sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Austintown is in
Austintown sits in the Erie Drift Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Austintown's own centroid rather than borrowed from Mahoning County.
What Grows in Austintown
Every plant below cleared Austintown's own zone 6a and its 189-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Austintown?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 20 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 26 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Even past midsummer there is room for a true fall garden here, and garlic planted near the close carries the momentum into next year.
Documented around Austintown
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Austintown, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Austintown
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Austintown. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- KWIK FILL #S231/275Underground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- JOSEPH KNIGHT TOWERUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- GREENWOOD CHEVROLET, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- K MART #4229Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- GREENWOOD CHEVROLET INCBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- MIDAS MUFFLERBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- CLARK OIL SERVICE STATION #1300Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- WEDGEWOOD SHELLUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- WEDGEWOOD AMOCOBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- RICH OIL #3758Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- BP OIL CO. #06483Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- PROCARE AUTOMOTIVE SERVICE SOLUTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Austintown'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 Austintown.
Total Sites
1,214
within ~10 miles of Austintown
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
10 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Austintown
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Austintown
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Austintown, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Austintown — Toxics Release Inventory (90 sites) and PFAS (12 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Austintown
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 Austintown average
Your land is one point inside Austintown
Everything above resolves to Austintown as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 7K 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 town 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 Austintown Average
Austintown Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Austintown
- ●One soil character for all of Austintown
- ●Frost dates read at Austintown's scale: Apr 20 to Oct 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Austintown's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Austintown
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Austintown, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Austintown averages can't show:
We read public map data around Austintown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Austintown average
How we know this about Austintown
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Austintown’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 town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-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 Austintown
When does frost risk typically end in Austintown?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Austintown typically lands around Apr 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 May 11.
When is the first frost in Austintown?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Austintown typically arrives around Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 12, so the watching starts about Sep 26 — about 189 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Austintown?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Austintown sees about 189 frost-free days — roughly Apr 20 through Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 11 to Oct 12, about 154 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Austintown?
The federal record around Austintown runs heavier than most — 1,214 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (636), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Austintown?
From about Sep 26 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 Oct 26 (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 Oct 26. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Austintown's scale — its 6a band and its 189-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Austintown'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 Austintown’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Austintown's own scale — its own ~189-day season between 28°F freezes, the 7,435 acres it covers and 1,214 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Austintown's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Austintown's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 20 and Oct 26 and the ~189-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,214 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Austintown, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Austintown's boundary and the 7,435 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~189-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Austintown's own centroid, the Erie Drift PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Austintownlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Austintown's 7,435 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Mahoning County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Mahoning County
- The growing challenges every Ohio grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Ohio
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Mahoning County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Austintown's 7,435 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Austintown you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 7,435 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Austintown-wide figureread your own land →