Lucas County, in Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
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.
Lucas County lies within the Lake Erie Shore (Ohio North Coast) — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Lucas County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Lucas 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 Lucas County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Lucas County — the short answer
Lucas County, Ohio: USDA zone 6b, about 224 days between hard freezes, across 217K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~224
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 217K 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 Lucas County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lucas County's 224-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Lucas County
Across a year, Lucas County accumulates about 2,919 growing degree days above 50°F, about 3 fewer than the middle Ohio county — ahead of 40 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 Lucas County
Across Lucas County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Latty, Ottokee, and Granby are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally very poorly drained with a loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.3–6.5, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Very poorly drained
Prime farmland
3%
Hydric soils
51%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Lucas County
The USDA soil survey maps 41% of Lucas County as very poorly drained — but another 42% drains differently: 27% somewhat poorly drained, 9% moderately well drained.
Latty is the most extensive named soil at 11% of mapped acres, then Ottokee (10%) and Granby (10%).
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 Lucas County
Each reading below is measured for Lucas 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 Lucas County are very poorly drained, in hydrologic group D — ground that sheds water slowly.
Beds can stay saturated for days after heavy rain, and the roots of most vegetables, berries, and fruit trees suffocate or rot in soil that never drains.
Raised beds or mounded rows lift roots above the wet zone; choose water-tolerant crops for the lowest spots.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Lucas County runs about pH 6.3–6.5, 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
Season length
MeasuredLucas County runs about 224 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
MeasuredLucas County sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Lucas County is in
Lucas County sits in the Huron/Erie Lake Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Lucas County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Lucas County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 224-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 Lucas County?
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 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 4 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 14 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Lucas County
Spotted lanternfly documented 4 miles from Lucas County, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle5 documented records
- monarch butterfly75 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Lucas County
USGS estimates 49,764 lb of Glyphosate on Lucas County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (12,987 lb) and Atrazine (12,213 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 Lucas County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Lucas County — 2,168 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 54 Superfund sites (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 Lucas 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 Lucas County
Closest first, across Lucas County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BITUMINOUS PRODUCTS COBrownfields · 550 ft
- TOLEDO-LUCAS PORT AUTHORITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- TOLEDO WORLD INDUSTRIES, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- MIDWEST BIO RENEWABLESToxics Release Inventory · 1900 ft
- NORCO PIPE LINE CO TOLEDO STATIONBrownfields · 2000 ft
- MIDWEST TERMINALS OF TOLEDO INTERNATIONAL - FACILITY 1Brownfields · 2100 ft
- CHEMTRADEToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- LU-197-O27 SOHIO,TOLEDO REF-LPG AT OREGON OHNitrate · 0.6 mi
- GREEN EARTH E CYCLE COBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- OREGON REFINERY SERVICESBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- OREGON REFINERY SERVICESToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- P & W PAINTING CONTRACTORS, INC.Brownfields · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lucas 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 Lucas County.
Total Sites
2,168
across Lucas County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
54 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Lucas County
Severity Distribution
across Lucas County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lucas County, two things run higher than the national average across Lucas County — Superfund (54 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (143 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Lucas 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 Lucas County average
Your land is one point inside Lucas County
Everything above resolves to Lucas County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 217K 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 Lucas County Average
Lucas County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Lucas County
- ●One soil character for all of Lucas County
- ●Frost dates read at Lucas County's scale: Apr 4 to Nov 14
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lucas County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Lucas County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lucas County, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lucas County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lucas County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lucas County average
How we know this about Lucas 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 Lucas County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Lucas County
When does frost risk typically end in Lucas County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lucas County typically lands around Apr 4, 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 25.
How long is the growing season in Lucas County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lucas County sees about 224 frost-free days — roughly Apr 4 through Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 25 to Oct 31, about 189 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lucas County?
The federal record around Lucas County is a meaningful one — 2,168 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (943), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.1 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 Lucas County's scale — its 6b band and its 224-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lucas 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 Lucas County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Lucas County's own scale — its own ~224-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 2,168 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lucas County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lucas County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~224-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Lucas CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 2,168 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Lucas County's boundary and the 217,387 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~224-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Lucas County sitting wholly inside the Huron/Erie Lake PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Lucas County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Lucas 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 Lucas County — the ~224 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 Lucas County's 217,387 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 2,168 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 Lucas Countyread your own land →