Candlewood Lake, Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
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 Candlewood Lake, 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 Candlewood Lake 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 Candlewood Lake — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Candlewood Lake — the short answer
Candlewood Lake, Ohio: USDA zone 6a, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~200
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 Candlewood Lake's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Candlewood Lake's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Candlewood Lake
Each reading below is measured for Candlewood Lake itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCandlewood Lake runs about 200 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
MeasuredCandlewood Lake 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 Candlewood Lake is in
Candlewood Lake sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Candlewood Lake's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Morrow County is mostly Erie Drift Plain. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Candlewood Lake
Every plant below cleared Candlewood Lake's own zone 6a and its 200-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Candlewood Lake?
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 18; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 15 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 1 — 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 Candlewood Lake
Survey cells within 31 miles of Candlewood Lake checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 44 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Candlewood Lake
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Candlewood Lake. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CANDLEWOOD LAKE INCBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- NORTHMOR HIGH SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- NORTHMAR HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- MAC RESOURCES LLC MT GILEADToxics Release Inventory · 3.3 mi
- MAC RESOURCES LLCBrownfields · 3.3 mi
- MT GILEAD VILLAGE PWSPFAS · 4.0 mi
- VILLAGE OF MOUNT GILEADUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- MORROW COUNTY FAIRGROUNDSUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- APPLE PIE INNUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- BP OIL CO. #07301Underground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- ODOT CHESTERVILLE OUTPOSTUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- OHIO STATE HIGHWAY PATROL POSTUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Candlewood Lake'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 Candlewood Lake.
Total Sites
154
within ~10 miles of Candlewood Lake
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
4 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Candlewood Lake
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Candlewood Lake
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Candlewood Lake, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Candlewood Lake — PFAS (4 sites) and Superfund (4 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Candlewood Lake
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 Candlewood Lake average
Your land is one point inside Candlewood Lake
Everything above resolves to Candlewood Lake as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Candlewood Lake Average
Candlewood Lake Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Candlewood Lake
- ●One soil character for all of Candlewood Lake
- ●Frost dates read at Candlewood Lake's scale: Apr 15 to Nov 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Candlewood Lake's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Candlewood Lake
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Candlewood Lake, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Candlewood Lake averages can't show:
We read public map data around Candlewood Lake — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Candlewood Lake average
How we know this about Candlewood Lake
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 Candlewood Lake’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 Candlewood Lake
When does frost risk typically end in Candlewood Lake?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Candlewood Lake typically lands around Apr 15, 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 6.
When is the first frost in Candlewood Lake?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Candlewood Lake typically arrives around Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 18, so the watching starts about Oct 2 — about 200 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Candlewood Lake?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Candlewood Lake sees about 200 frost-free days — roughly Apr 15 through Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 6 to Oct 18, about 165 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Candlewood Lake?
The federal record around Candlewood Lake is a meaningful one — 154 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (74), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.7 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 Candlewood Lake?
From about Oct 2 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 1 (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 1. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Candlewood Lake's scale — its 6a band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Candlewood Lake'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 Candlewood Lake’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Candlewood Lake's own scale — its own ~200-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,478 acres it covers and 154 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Candlewood Lake's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Candlewood Lake's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 15 and Nov 1 and the ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 154 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Candlewood Lake, the closest Brownfields record about 0.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Candlewood Lake's boundary and the 1,478 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~200-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Candlewood Lake sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Candlewood Lake 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 Candlewood Lake's 1,478 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Morrow County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Morrow 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 Morrow County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Candlewood Lake's 1,478 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Candlewood Lake you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,478 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.7 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 Candlewood Lake-wide figureread your own land →
More in Ohio
Wider growing context
What grows across OhioCandlewood Lake sits outside our named growing regions, so Ohio as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides