Ironton, Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Ironton, 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 Ironton 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 Ironton — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Ironton — the short answer
Ironton, Ohio: USDA zone 7a, about 214 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~214
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 3K 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 7a is Ironton's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Ironton's 214-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Ironton
Each reading below is measured for Ironton itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredIronton 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
MeasuredIronton sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Ironton is in
Ironton sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Ironton's own centroid rather than borrowed from Lawrence County.
What Grows in Ironton
Every plant below cleared Ironton's own zone 7a and its 214-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Ironton?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 6; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 3 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 3 — 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 Ironton
Survey cells within 31 miles of Ironton checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 97 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Ironton
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Ironton. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- IRONTON METROPOLITAN HOUSINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- OHIO POWER CO.Underground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- CITY OF IRONTONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- CVS PHARMACY #3474Brownfields · 1200 ft
- MOTOR PARTS WHOLESALE INCBrownfields · 1200 ft
- RICH OIL 3742Brownfields · 1300 ft
- FORMER GAS STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- LAWRENCE COUNTY GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- RICH OIL #3742Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- DOLLAR GENERAL STORE #2871Brownfields · 1400 ft
- BOB CLYSE CHEVROLET/ GMCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- RICH OIL, INC. #7147Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Ironton'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 Ironton.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Ironton
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Ironton
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Ironton, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Ironton — Superfund (14 sites) and PFAS (5 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
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 Ironton
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 Ironton average
Your land is one point inside Ironton
Everything above resolves to Ironton as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 city 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 Ironton Average
Ironton Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Ironton
- ●One soil character for all of Ironton
- ●Frost dates read at Ironton's scale: Apr 3 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Ironton's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Ironton
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Ironton, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Ironton averages can't show:
We read public map data around Ironton — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Ironton average
How we know this about Ironton
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Ironton’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Ironton
When does frost risk typically end in Ironton?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Ironton typically lands around Apr 3, 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 24.
When is the first frost in Ironton?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Ironton typically arrives around Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 20, so the watching starts about Oct 4 — about 214 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Ironton?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Ironton sees about 214 frost-free days — roughly Apr 3 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 24 to Oct 20, about 179 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Ironton?
The federal record around Ironton runs heavier than most — 492 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (319), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Ironton?
From about Oct 4 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 3 (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 3. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Ironton's scale — its 7a band and its 214-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Ironton'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 Ironton’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Ironton's own scale — its own ~214-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,860 acres it covers and 492 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Ironton's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Ironton's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 3 and Nov 3 and the ~214-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 492 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Ironton, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Ironton's boundary and the 2,860 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~214-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Ironton's own centroid, the Western Allegheny PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Ironton checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Ironton's 2,860 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Lawrence County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Lawrence 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 Lawrence County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Ironton's 2,860 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Ironton you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,860 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Ironton-wide figureread your own land →