Crystal Lakes, Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
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.
Even in Crystal Lakes, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Crystal Lakes lot. 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 Crystal Lakes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Crystal Lakes — the short answer
Crystal Lakes, Ohio: USDA zone 6b, about 214 days between hard freezes, across 308 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~214
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 308 acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 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 Crystal Lakes's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Crystal Lakes's 214-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Crystal Lakes
Each reading below is measured for Crystal Lakes itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCrystal Lakes runs about 214 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
MeasuredCrystal Lakes 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 Crystal Lakes is in
Crystal Lakes sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Crystal Lakes's own centroid rather than borrowed from Clark County.
What Grows in Crystal Lakes
Every plant below cleared Crystal Lakes's own zone 6b and its 214-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Crystal Lakes?
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 4 — 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 Crystal Lakes
Spotted lanternfly documented 8 miles from Crystal Lakes, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Crystal Lakes
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Crystal Lakes. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MACDONALDS CRYSTAL LAKES MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- MEDWAY MARINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- SOUTH PARK RESIDENCE MERCURY SPILLSuperfund · 2300 ft
- AMERITECH SERVICES, INC. L55138Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- CL-290Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- CL-280 MIAM NAWQA SUS WELL BVAS-7Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- ABANDONED GAS STATUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- ORPHAN TANKUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- CL-286 MIAM NAWQA LUS WELL BVAS URB-26 MEDWAY, OHNitrate · 0.6 mi
- CL-287 MIAM NAWQA LUS WELL BVAS URB-25 CRYSTAL LK.Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- WILE MOBILE HOME PARKSuperfund · 0.8 mi
- MEDWAY CLEANERSBrownfields · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Crystal Lakes'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 Crystal Lakes.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Crystal Lakes
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Crystal Lakes
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Crystal Lakes, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Crystal Lakes — Superfund (22 sites) and PFAS (11 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Crystal Lakes
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 Crystal Lakes average
Your land is one point inside Crystal Lakes
Everything above resolves to Crystal Lakes as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 308 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 town 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 local average.
Your Lot vs the Crystal Lakes Average
Crystal Lakes Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Crystal Lakes
- ●One soil character for all of Crystal Lakes
- ●Frost dates read at Crystal Lakes's scale: Apr 4 to Nov 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Crystal Lakes's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Crystal Lakes
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Crystal Lakes, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Crystal Lakes averages can't show:
We read public map data around Crystal Lakes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Crystal Lakes average
How we know this about Crystal Lakes
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Crystal Lakes’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Crystal Lakes
When does frost risk typically end in Crystal Lakes?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Crystal Lakes 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.
When is the first frost in Crystal Lakes?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Crystal Lakes typically arrives around Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 21, so the watching starts about Oct 5 — about 214 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Crystal Lakes?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Crystal Lakes sees about 214 frost-free days — roughly Apr 4 through Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 25 to Oct 21, about 179 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Crystal Lakes?
The federal record around Crystal Lakes runs heavier than most — 924 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (377), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Crystal Lakes?
From about Oct 5 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Nov 4 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Nov 4. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Crystal Lakes's scale — its 6b band and its 214-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Crystal Lakes's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Crystal Lakes’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Crystal Lakes's own scale — its own ~214-day season between 28°F freezes, the 308 acres it covers and 924 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Crystal Lakes's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Crystal Lakes's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 4 and Nov 4 and the ~214-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 924 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Crystal Lakes, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Crystal Lakes's boundary and the 308 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~214-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Crystal Lakes's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Crystal Lakeslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Crystal Lakes's 308 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Clark County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Clark County
- The growing challenges every Ohio grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Ohio
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Clark County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Crystal Lakes's 308 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Crystal Lakes you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 308 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Crystal Lakes-wide figureread your own land →
More in Ohio
Wider growing context
What grows across OhioCrystal Lakes sits outside our named growing regions, so Ohio as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides