Fairfield County, in Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Fairfield County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Fairfield County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Fairfield County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Fairfield County — the short answer
Fairfield County, Ohio: USDA zone 6b, about 204 days between hard freezes, across 323K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~204
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 323K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 6b is Fairfield County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Fairfield County's 204-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Fairfield County
Across a year, Fairfield County accumulates about 3,052 growing degree days above 50°F, about 130 more than the middle Ohio county — ahead of 63 of Ohio’s 88 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Fairfield County
Across Fairfield County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Amanda, Centerburg, and Bennington are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.9–6.4, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C/D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
34%
Hydric soils
15%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Fairfield County
The USDA soil survey maps 41% of Fairfield County as well drained — but another 56% drains differently: 26% moderately well drained, 14% somewhat poorly drained.
Amanda is the most extensive named soil at 18% of mapped acres, then Centerburg (13%) and Bennington (9%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Fairfield County
Each reading below is measured for Fairfield County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Fairfield County are well drained, in hydrologic group C/D — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Fairfield County runs about pH 5.9–6.4, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 15% of Fairfield County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredFairfield County runs about 204 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
The kind of country Fairfield County is in
Fairfield County spans 3 EPA Level III ecoregions — Eastern Corn Belt Plains (78%), Western Allegheny Plateau (15%) and Erie Drift Plain (7%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Fairfield County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Fairfield County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 204-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile.
Is it too late to plant in Fairfield County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 10 (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. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Fairfield County
Spotted lanternfly documented 24 miles from Fairfield County, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle3 documented records
- monarch butterfly20 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Fairfield County
USGS estimates 83,743 lb of Glyphosate on Fairfield County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (51,196 lb) and Acetochlor (30,285 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Fairfield County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Fairfield County — 419 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Fairfield County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Fairfield County
Closest first, across Fairfield County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- RIVER VIEW SURGERY CENTERBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- BOB BOYD FORDBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- AANYA GAS LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- HUGH WHITE OF LANCASTERBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- LOWES #527Brownfields · 0.8 mi
- GetGo #3538Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- GIANT EAGLE STORE #6538Brownfields · 0.8 mi
- ASPEN DENTALBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- WALMART SUPERCENTER #3792Brownfields · 0.9 mi
- SAND CASTING TECHSToxics Release Inventory · 0.9 mi
- ROSS CAST METALSToxics Release Inventory · 0.9 mi
- GRIBBLE'S RIVER VALLEY MOTORSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Fairfield County'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 Fairfield County.
Total Sites
419
across Fairfield County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Fairfield County
Severity Distribution
across Fairfield County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Fairfield County, two things run higher than the national average across Fairfield County — PFAS (6 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (28 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.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Fairfield County
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 Fairfield County average
Your land is one point inside Fairfield County
Everything above resolves to Fairfield County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 323K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Fairfield County Average
Fairfield County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Fairfield County
- ●One soil character for all of Fairfield County
- ●Frost dates read at Fairfield County's scale: Apr 10 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Fairfield County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Fairfield County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Fairfield County, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Fairfield County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Fairfield County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Fairfield County average
How we know this about Fairfield County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Fairfield County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Fairfield County
When does frost risk typically end in Fairfield County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Fairfield County typically lands around Apr 10, 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 1.
How long is the growing season in Fairfield County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Fairfield County sees about 204 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Oct 17, about 169 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Fairfield County?
The federal record around Fairfield County is a meaningful one — 419 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (207), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.6 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.
Everything above is measured at Fairfield County's scale — its 6b band and its 204-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Fairfield County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Ohio's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Fairfield County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Fairfield County's own scale — its own ~204-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 419 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Fairfield County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Fairfield County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~204-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Fairfield CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 419 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 0.6 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Fairfield County's boundary and the 322,793 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~204-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 3 ecoregions Fairfield County spans, Eastern Corn Belt Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Fairfield County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Fairfield County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Ohio grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Ohio
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Fairfield County — the ~204 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Fairfield County's 322,793 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 419 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Fairfield Countyread your own land →