Belle Center, Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Belle 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 Belle 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 Belle Center — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Belle Center — the short answer
Belle Center, Ohio: USDA zone 6a, about 208 days between hard freezes, across 447 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~208
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 447 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 Belle Center's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Belle Center's 208-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Belle Center
Each reading below is measured for Belle Center itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBelle Center runs about 208 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
MeasuredBelle Center 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 Belle Center is in
Belle Center sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Belle Center's own centroid rather than borrowed from Logan County.
What Grows in Belle Center
Every plant below cleared Belle Center's own zone 6a and its 208-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Belle Center?
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 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 3 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Belle Center
Survey cells within 31 miles of Belle Center checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 42 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Belle Center
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Belle Center. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BELLE CENTER ELEMENTARYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- D & G MINI MART BELLE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- THEODORE M. YOCUM, SR.Underground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- BELLECENTER GRAIN CO.Underground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- FORMER SERV STAUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- SHELLY MATERIALS-BELLE CENTERBrownfields · 2.3 mi
- THE SHELLY COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- CW'SUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- HN-139 01Nitrate · 4.5 mi
- ROBERTS SCREWToxics Release Inventory · 4.7 mi
- BENJAMIN LOGAN MAGNET ELEMENTARYUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.0 mi
- RUSHSYLVANIA ONE STOP-MARATHONUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Belle 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 Belle Center.
Total Sites
79
within ~10 miles of Belle Center
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
6 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Belle Center
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Belle Center
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Belle Center, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 6 sites within ~10 miles of Belle Center. 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.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Belle 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 Belle Center average
Your land is one point inside Belle Center
Everything above resolves to Belle Center as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 447 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 Belle Center Average
Belle Center Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Belle Center
- ●One soil character for all of Belle Center
- ●Frost dates read at Belle Center's scale: Apr 9 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Belle Center's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Belle Center
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Belle Center, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Belle Center averages can't show:
We read public map data around Belle Center — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Belle Center average
How we know this about Belle Center
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 Belle 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 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 Belle Center
When does frost risk typically end in Belle Center?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Belle Center typically lands around Apr 9, 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 30.
When is the first frost in Belle Center?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Belle Center typically arrives around Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 20, so the watching starts about Oct 4 — about 208 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Belle Center?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Belle Center sees about 208 frost-free days — roughly Apr 9 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 30 to Oct 20, about 173 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Belle Center?
The federal record around Belle Center shows 79 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (46), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Belle Center?
From about Oct 4 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 3 (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 3. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Belle Center's scale — its 6a band and its 208-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Belle 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 Belle Center’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Belle Center's own scale — its own ~208-day season between 28°F freezes, the 447 acres it covers and 79 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Belle Center's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Belle Center's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 9 and Nov 3 and the ~208-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 79 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Belle Center, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Belle Center's boundary and the 447 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~208-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Belle Center's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Belle Center 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 Belle Center's 447 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Logan County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Logan 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 Logan County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Belle Center's 447 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Belle 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 447 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Belle Center-wide figureread your own land →
More in Ohio
Wider growing context
What grows across OhioBelle Center sits outside our named growing regions, so Ohio as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides