Bailey Lakes, Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
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 Bailey Lakes, 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 Bailey Lakes 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 Bailey Lakes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Bailey Lakes — the short answer
Bailey Lakes, Ohio: USDA zone 6a, about 198 days between hard freezes, across 244 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~198
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 244 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 Bailey Lakes's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bailey Lakes's 198-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Bailey Lakes
Each reading below is measured for Bailey Lakes itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBailey Lakes runs about 198 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
MeasuredBailey Lakes 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 Bailey Lakes is in
Bailey Lakes sits in the Erie Drift Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Bailey Lakes's own centroid rather than borrowed from Ashland County.
What Grows in Bailey Lakes
Every plant below cleared Bailey Lakes's own zone 6a and its 198-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Bailey Lakes?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 19; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 16 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 31 — 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 Bailey Lakes
Spotted lanternfly documented 30 miles from Bailey Lakes, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Bailey Lakes
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Bailey Lakes. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FRIENDLY EXPRESS 6Underground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- ELLIS HASINGER & MARY GLASSERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- AUCTION PROPERTYBrownfields · 3.8 mi
- MAPLETON LOCAL SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.4 mi
- BARBASOL LLCBrownfields · 4.4 mi
- RAIN DROP PRODUCTS LLCBrownfields · 4.4 mi
- KAR-DEL PLASTICS INCToxics Release Inventory · 4.4 mi
- KAR-DEL PLASTICS INCBrownfields · 4.4 mi
- DAVIS & SONS TREE SERVICEBrownfields · 4.4 mi
- ABBOTT LABS PLANT 3 *Toxics Release Inventory · 4.5 mi
- ABBOTT LABS PLANT 3 *Brownfields · 4.5 mi
- OHIO DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATIONBrownfields · 4.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bailey Lakes'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 Bailey Lakes.
Total Sites
221
within ~10 miles of Bailey Lakes
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Bailey Lakes
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Bailey Lakes
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bailey Lakes, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 21 sites within ~10 miles of Bailey Lakes. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Bailey Lakes
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 Bailey Lakes average
Your land is one point inside Bailey Lakes
Everything above resolves to Bailey Lakes as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 244 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 Bailey Lakes Average
Bailey Lakes Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Bailey Lakes
- ●One soil character for all of Bailey Lakes
- ●Frost dates read at Bailey Lakes's scale: Apr 16 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bailey Lakes's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Bailey Lakes
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bailey Lakes, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bailey Lakes averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bailey Lakes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bailey Lakes average
How we know this about Bailey Lakes
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 Bailey Lakes’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 Bailey Lakes
When does frost risk typically end in Bailey Lakes?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bailey Lakes typically lands around Apr 16, 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 7.
When is the first frost in Bailey Lakes?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Bailey Lakes typically arrives around Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 17, so the watching starts about Oct 1 — about 198 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Bailey Lakes?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bailey Lakes sees about 198 frost-free days — roughly Apr 16 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 7 to Oct 17, about 163 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bailey Lakes?
The federal record around Bailey Lakes is a meaningful one — 221 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (130), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles 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 Bailey Lakes?
From about Oct 1 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 31 (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 31. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Bailey Lakes's scale — its 6a band and its 198-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bailey Lakes'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 Bailey Lakes’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Bailey Lakes's own scale — its own ~198-day season between 28°F freezes, the 244 acres it covers and 221 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bailey Lakes's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bailey Lakes's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 16 and Oct 31 and the ~198-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 221 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Bailey Lakes, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Bailey Lakes's boundary and the 244 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~198-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Bailey Lakes's own centroid, the Erie Drift PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Bailey Lakeslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Bailey Lakes's 244 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Ashland County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Ashland 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 Ashland County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bailey Lakes's 244 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Bailey Lakes you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 244 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Bailey Lakes-wide figureread your own land →
More in Ohio
Wider growing context
What grows across OhioBailey Lakes sits outside our named growing regions, so Ohio as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides