Bluffton, Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Bluffton, 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 Bluffton 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 Bluffton — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Bluffton — the short answer
Bluffton, Ohio: USDA zone 6a, about 214 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~214
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 Bluffton's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bluffton's 214-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Bluffton
Each reading below is measured for Bluffton itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBluffton runs about 214 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
MeasuredBluffton 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 Bluffton is in
Bluffton sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Bluffton's own centroid rather than borrowed from Allen County.
What Grows in Bluffton
Every plant below cleared Bluffton's own zone 6a and its 214-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Bluffton?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 7 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 7 — 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.
Documented around Bluffton
Survey cells within 31 miles of Bluffton checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 46 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Bluffton
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Bluffton. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PANDORA GRAIN AND SUPPLY INCBrownfields · 400 ft
- ROBERT ANGUSUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- FAMILY DOLLAR #1094Brownfields · 950 ft
- CVS PHARMACY #11213Brownfields · 1200 ft
- RON'S MARATHONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- BLUFFTON NEWS PUBLISHING AND PRINTING COBrownfields · 1200 ft
- TRIPLETT CORPORATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- FORMER CAR DEALERSHIPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- GARY KIRTLANDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- MARATHON #205Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- DENVER R. AUGSBURGERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- JOHNS BODY SHOPBrownfields · 2100 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bluffton'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 Bluffton.
Total Sites
117
within ~10 miles of Bluffton
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
7 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Bluffton
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Bluffton
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •TRI facilities report what they release. Check the wind — downwind beds catch more of it.
Check your specific parcel in Bluffton
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 Bluffton average
Your land is one point inside Bluffton
Everything above resolves to Bluffton as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Bluffton Average
Bluffton Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Bluffton
- ●One soil character for all of Bluffton
- ●Frost dates read at Bluffton's scale: Apr 7 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bluffton's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Bluffton
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bluffton, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bluffton averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bluffton — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bluffton average
How we know this about Bluffton
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 Bluffton’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 Bluffton
When does frost risk typically end in Bluffton?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bluffton typically lands around Apr 7, 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 28.
When is the first frost in Bluffton?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Bluffton typically arrives around Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 24, so the watching starts about Oct 8 — about 214 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Bluffton?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bluffton sees about 214 frost-free days — roughly Apr 7 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 28 to Oct 24, about 179 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bluffton?
The federal record around Bluffton shows 117 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (56), the nearest Brownfields 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 Bluffton?
From about Oct 8 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 7 (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 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Bluffton's scale — its 6a band and its 214-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bluffton'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 Bluffton’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Bluffton's own scale — its own ~214-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,365 acres it covers and 117 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bluffton's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bluffton's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 7 and Nov 7 and the ~214-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 117 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Bluffton, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Bluffton's boundary and the 2,365 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~214-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Bluffton's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Bluffton 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 Bluffton's 2,365 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Allen County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Allen 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 Allen County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bluffton's 2,365 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Bluffton you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,365 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Bluffton-wide figureread your own land →
More in Ohio
Wider growing context
What grows across OhioBluffton sits outside our named growing regions, so Ohio as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides