Van Wert County, in Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Van Wert County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Van Wert 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 Van Wert County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Van Wert County — the short answer
Van Wert County, Ohio: USDA zone 6a, about 208 days between hard freezes, across 262K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~208
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 262K 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 6a is Van Wert County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Van Wert County's 208-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Van Wert County
Across a year, Van Wert County accumulates about 2,936 growing degree days above 50°F, about 14 more than the middle Ohio county — ahead of 46 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 Van Wert County
Across Van Wert County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Pewamo, Blount, and Hoytville are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally very poorly drained with a silty clay loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.4–6.7, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C/D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Very poorly drained
Prime farmland
3%
Hydric soils
69%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Van Wert County
The USDA soil survey maps 69% of Van Wert County as very poorly drained — but another 31% drains differently: 28% somewhat poorly drained, 3% moderately well drained.
Pewamo is the most extensive named soil at 28% of mapped acres, then Blount (22%) and Hoytville (6%).
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 Van Wert County
Each reading below is measured for Van Wert 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 Van Wert County are very poorly drained, in hydrologic group C/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 Van Wert County runs about pH 6.4–6.7, 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
MeasuredVan Wert County runs about 208 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
MeasuredVan Wert County 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 Van Wert County is in
Van Wert County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Eastern Corn Belt Plains (63%) and Huron/Erie Lake Plains (37%). 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 Van Wert County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Van Wert County's own USDA zone 6a and its own 208-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 Van Wert 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 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 8 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 2 — 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 Van Wert County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Van Wert County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 35 miles off. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Van Wert County
USGS estimates 212,979 lb of Glyphosate on Van Wert County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (55,237 lb) and Atrazine (50,058 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 Van Wert County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Van Wert County — 148 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 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 Van Wert 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 Van Wert County
Closest first, across Van Wert County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- KENNEDY KUHN INCBrownfields · 300 ft
- ROUNDY'S AMERICAN MERCHANDISINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- WATER TREATMENT PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- VAN WERT PARTY MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- VAN WERT HEALTH CENTERBrownfields · 1600 ft
- SUPERIOR AUTO BODY INCBrownfields · 2000 ft
- LEE KINSTLE SALES & SERVICEBrownfields · 2100 ft
- VAN WERT COUNTY HOSPITAL *Brownfields · 2200 ft
- GREIF PACKAGING LLC (0381020108)Brownfields · 2300 ft
- GREIF PACKAGING LLC (0381020108)Toxics Release Inventory · 2300 ft
- GREIF PACKAGINGToxics Release Inventory · 2300 ft
- CVS PHARMACY #3312Brownfields · 2400 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Van Wert 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 Van Wert County.
Total Sites
148
across Van Wert County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Van Wert County
Severity Distribution
across Van Wert County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Van Wert County, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 17 sites across Van Wert County. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Van Wert 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 Van Wert County average
Your land is one point inside Van Wert County
Everything above resolves to Van Wert County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 262K 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 Van Wert County Average
Van Wert County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Van Wert County
- ●One soil character for all of Van Wert County
- ●Frost dates read at Van Wert County's scale: Apr 8 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Van Wert County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Van Wert County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Van Wert County, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Van Wert County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Van Wert County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Van Wert County average
How we know this about Van Wert 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 Van Wert County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Van Wert County
When does frost risk typically end in Van Wert County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Van Wert County typically lands around Apr 8, 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 29.
How long is the growing season in Van Wert County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Van Wert County sees about 208 frost-free days — roughly Apr 8 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 29 to Oct 19, about 173 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Van Wert County?
The federal record around Van Wert County is a meaningful one — 148 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (68), the nearest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile 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 Van Wert County's scale — its 6a band and its 208-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Van Wert 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 Van Wert County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Van Wert County's own scale — its own ~208-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 148 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Van Wert County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Van Wert County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~208-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Van Wert CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 148 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile outFederal environmental registers
- Van Wert County's boundary and the 261,856 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~208-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Van Wert County spans, Eastern Corn Belt Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Van Wert County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Van Wert 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 Van Wert County — the ~208 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 Van Wert County's 261,856 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 148 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 Van Wert Countyread your own land →