Fairfax, Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Fairfax, 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 Fairfax 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 Fairfax — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Fairfax — the short answer
Fairfax, Ohio: USDA zone 6b, about 221 days between hard freezes, across 499 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~221
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 499 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 Fairfax's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Fairfax's 221-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Fairfax
Each reading below is measured for Fairfax itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFairfax runs about 221 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
MeasuredFairfax 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 Fairfax is in
Fairfax sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Fairfax's own centroid rather than borrowed from Hamilton County.
What Grows in Fairfax
Every plant below cleared Fairfax's own zone 6b and its 221-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Fairfax?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 8 — 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 Fairfax
Spotted lanternfly documented 5 miles from Fairfax, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Fairfax
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Fairfax. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- VELVA-SHEEN MANUFACTURING COToxics Release Inventory · 700 ft
- CREST CRAFT COMPANYBrownfields · 700 ft
- OHIO MEDICAL INSTRUMENT CO INCBrownfields · 900 ft
- COOPER ELECTRICAL CONTRACTING COUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- CHAMPION SCREEN PRINTING CORP.Underground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- MERCURY INSTRUMENTS, INC.Brownfields · 1200 ft
- MERCURY INSTRUMENTS, INC.Toxics Release Inventory · 1200 ft
- MATTHEWS INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION - MATTHEWS AUTOMATION SOLUTIONSBrownfields · 1200 ft
- O'KEEFFE'SToxics Release Inventory · 1200 ft
- CST - CINCINNATIBrownfields · 1200 ft
- DERRINGER FOOD SERVICES, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- CINCINNATI GEAR COToxics Release Inventory · 1600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Fairfax'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 Fairfax.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Fairfax
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Fairfax
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Fairfax, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Fairfax — Toxics Release Inventory (285 sites) and Superfund (48 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 Fairfax
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 Fairfax average
Your land is one point inside Fairfax
Everything above resolves to Fairfax as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 499 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 Fairfax Average
Fairfax Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Fairfax
- ●One soil character for all of Fairfax
- ●Frost dates read at Fairfax's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Fairfax's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Fairfax
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Fairfax, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Fairfax averages can't show:
We read public map data around Fairfax — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Fairfax average
How we know this about Fairfax
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 Fairfax’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 Fairfax
When does frost risk typically end in Fairfax?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Fairfax typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
When is the first frost in Fairfax?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Fairfax typically arrives around Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 25, so the watching starts about Oct 9 — about 221 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Fairfax?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Fairfax sees about 221 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 25, about 186 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Fairfax?
The federal record around Fairfax runs heavier than most — 2,857 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,634), the nearest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.1 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 Fairfax?
From about Oct 9 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 8 (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 8. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Fairfax's scale — its 6b band and its 221-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Fairfax'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 Fairfax’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Fairfax's own scale — its own ~221-day season between 28°F freezes, the 499 acres it covers and 2,857 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Fairfax's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Fairfax's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 8 and the ~221-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,857 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Fairfax, the closest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Fairfax's boundary and the 499 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~221-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Fairfax's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Fairfaxlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Fairfax's 499 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Hamilton County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Hamilton 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 Hamilton County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Fairfax's 499 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Fairfax you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 499 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.1 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 Fairfax-wide figureread your own land →
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