Vinton County, in Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Vinton County lies within Appalachia — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Vinton County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Vinton 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 Vinton County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Vinton County — the short answer
Vinton County, Ohio: USDA zone 6b, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 264K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~200
- 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 Vinton County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Vinton County's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Vinton County
Across a year, Vinton County accumulates about 3,268 growing degree days above 50°F, about 346 more than the middle Ohio county — ahead of 74 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 Vinton County
Across Vinton County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Gilpin, Wharton, and Germano are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.6–5.4, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
4%
Hydric soils
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Vinton County
The USDA soil survey maps 65% of Vinton County as well drained — but another 35% drains differently: 31% moderately well drained, 2% somewhat poorly drained.
Gilpin is the most extensive named soil at 16% of mapped acres, then Wharton (13%) and Germano (13%).
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 Vinton County
Each reading below is measured for Vinton 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 Vinton County are well drained, in hydrologic group B — 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 Vinton County runs about pH 4.6–5.4, 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
MeasuredVinton County 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
MeasuredVinton 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 Vinton County is in
Vinton County sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Vinton County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Vinton County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 200-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 Vinton County?
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 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 26 — 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 Vinton County
- monarch butterfly2 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Vinton County
USGS estimates 3,043 lb of Glyphosate on Vinton County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acetochlor (1,037 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (985 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 Vinton County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Vinton County — 114 documented sites across 4 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Vinton County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Vinton County
Closest first, across Vinton County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- VINTON COUNTY HIGH SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- MAIN EXPRESS CITGOUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- LINDA WALKERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- FAMILY DOLLAR #1662Brownfields · 2500 ft
- VINTON COUNTY INDUSTRIAL PARKBrownfields · 2600 ft
- DOLLAR GENERAL STORE #240Brownfields · 2600 ft
- GLANDON LOGGING, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- BUD'S ONE STOP LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- BP OIL COBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- CLARK'S PUMP N SHOP #19Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- V-1 OHNitrate · 0.7 mi
- VINTON CO SCHOOLS BUS GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Vinton 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 Vinton County.
Total Sites
114
across Vinton County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Vinton County
Severity Distribution
across Vinton County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Vinton County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 30 sites across Vinton County. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Vinton 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 Vinton County average
Your land is one point inside Vinton County
Everything above resolves to Vinton 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 Vinton County Average
Vinton County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Vinton County
- ●One soil character for all of Vinton County
- ●Frost dates read at Vinton County's scale: Apr 9 to Oct 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Vinton County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Vinton County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Vinton County, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Vinton County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Vinton County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Vinton County average
How we know this about Vinton 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 Vinton County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Vinton County
When does frost risk typically end in Vinton County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Vinton County typically lands around Apr 9, 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 30.
How long is the growing season in Vinton County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Vinton County sees about 200 frost-free days — roughly Apr 9 through Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 30 to Oct 12, about 165 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Vinton County?
The federal record around Vinton County shows 114 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (56), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
Everything above is measured at Vinton County's scale — its 6b band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Vinton 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 Vinton County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Vinton County's own scale — its own ~200-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 114 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Vinton County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Vinton County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Vinton CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 114 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Vinton County's boundary and the 263,910 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~200-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Vinton County sitting wholly inside the Western Allegheny PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Vinton County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Vinton 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 Vinton County — the ~200 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 Vinton County's 263,910 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 114 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 Vinton Countyread your own land →