Summit County, in Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Summit County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Summit 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 Summit County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Summit County — the short answer
Summit County, Ohio: USDA zone 6b, about 223 days between hard freezes, across 264K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~223
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 264K 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 Summit County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Summit County's 223-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Summit County
Across a year, Summit County accumulates about 2,920 growing degree days above 50°F, about 2 fewer than the middle Ohio county — ahead of 42 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 Summit County
Across Summit County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Canfield, Ellsworth, and Rittman are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.8–6.3, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Moderately well drained
Prime farmland
28%
Hydric soils
12%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Summit County
The USDA soil survey maps 35% of Summit County as moderately well drained — but another 57% drains differently: 29% well drained, 17% somewhat poorly drained.
Canfield is the most extensive named soil at 12% of mapped acres, then Ellsworth (10%) and Rittman (7%).
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 Summit County
Each reading below is measured for Summit 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 Summit County are moderately well drained, in hydrologic group D — roughly the middle of the drainage range.
This is close to the middle most vegetables prefer: it holds enough water to carry a crop between rains without staying waterlogged. The catch is that a wet spring or a low corner can still tip it soggy.
Plant on the site as-is for most crops, but keep the lowest, slowest-draining beds for moisture-tolerant plantings.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Summit County runs about pH 4.8–6.3, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredSummit County runs about 223 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
MeasuredSummit 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 Summit County is in
Summit County sits in the Erie Drift Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Summit County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Summit County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 223-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 Summit 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 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 15 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Summit County
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Summit County, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle65 documented records
- monarch butterfly271 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Summit County
USGS estimates 4,220 lb of Glyphosate on Summit County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (1,851 lb) and Metolachlor-s (1,604 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 Summit County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Summit County — 2,254 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 28 Superfund sites. 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 Summit 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 Summit County
Closest first, across Summit County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FORMER CORRECTIONS FACILITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- SACKETT HILLS PUMP STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- VALLEY VIEW GOLF CLUBUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- UNKNOWN (RIGHT OF WAY)Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- 7-ELEVEN STORE #36238Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- AM / PM # 2414Brownfields · 1.0 mi
- BP OIL CO. #05643Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- YS CLEANERS LLC DBA DRY CLEANING WORLD OF AKRONBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- BOWERS TOWINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- SCHMELTZER EXCAVATING CO.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- CIRCLE K #5593Brownfields · 1.3 mi
- CIRCLE K #5593Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Summit 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 Summit County.
Sources Checked
across Summit County
Severity Distribution
across Summit County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Summit County, two things run higher than the national average across Summit County — Toxics Release Inventory (209 sites) and Superfund (28 sites). 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.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Summit 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 Summit County average
Your land is one point inside Summit County
Everything above resolves to Summit County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 264K 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 Summit County Average
Summit County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Summit County
- ●One soil character for all of Summit County
- ●Frost dates read at Summit County's scale: Apr 6 to Nov 15
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Summit County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Summit County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Summit County, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Summit County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Summit County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Summit County average
How we know this about Summit 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 Summit County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Summit County
When does frost risk typically end in Summit County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Summit County typically lands around Apr 6, 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 27.
How long is the growing season in Summit County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Summit County sees about 223 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Nov 1, about 188 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Summit County?
The federal record around Summit County is a meaningful one — 2,254 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,076), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Summit County's scale — its 6b band and its 223-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Summit 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 Summit County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Summit County's own scale — its own ~223-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 2,254 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Summit County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Summit County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~223-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Summit CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 2,254 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Summit County's boundary and the 264,119 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~223-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Summit County sitting wholly inside the Erie Drift PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Summit County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Summit 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 Summit County — the ~223 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 Summit County's 264,119 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 2,254 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 Summit Countyread your own land →