Kettering, 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 Kettering, 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 Kettering 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 Kettering — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Kettering — the short answer
Kettering, Ohio: USDA zone 6b, about 219 days between hard freezes, across 12K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~219
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 12K 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 Kettering's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Kettering's 219-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Kettering
Each reading below is measured for Kettering itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredKettering runs about 219 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
MeasuredKettering 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 Kettering is in
Kettering sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Kettering's own centroid rather than borrowed from Montgomery County.
What Grows in Kettering
Every plant below cleared Kettering's own zone 6b and its 219-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Kettering?
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 5; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 7 — 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 Kettering
Spotted lanternfly documented 21 miles from Kettering, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Kettering
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Kettering. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ORPHAN TANKUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- SPEEDWAY #9565Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- SPEEDWAY #45188Brownfields · 0.5 mi
- SPEEDWAY #45588Brownfields · 0.5 mi
- STROOP MAR CLEANERSBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- DOLLAR GENERAL STORE #4702Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- PEDIATRIC DENTISTRY SOUTHBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- SPEEDWAY #45571Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- SPEEDWAY#9342Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- PEP BOYS NO 428Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- CITY OF KETTERINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- CITY OF KETTERING POLICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Kettering'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 Kettering.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Kettering
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Kettering
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Kettering, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Kettering — Superfund (51 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (146 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.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Kettering
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 Kettering average
Your land is one point inside Kettering
Everything above resolves to Kettering as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 12K 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 Kettering Average
Kettering Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Kettering
- ●One soil character for all of Kettering
- ●Frost dates read at Kettering's scale: Apr 2 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Kettering's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Kettering
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Kettering, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Kettering averages can't show:
We read public map data around Kettering — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Kettering average
How we know this about Kettering
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 Kettering’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 Kettering
When does frost risk typically end in Kettering?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Kettering typically lands around Apr 2, 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 23.
When is the first frost in Kettering?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Kettering typically arrives around Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 24, so the watching starts about Oct 8 — about 219 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Kettering?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Kettering sees about 219 frost-free days — roughly Apr 2 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 23 to Oct 24, about 184 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Kettering?
The federal record around Kettering runs heavier than most — 2,036 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (936), 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 Kettering?
From about Oct 8 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 7 (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 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Kettering's scale — its 6b band and its 219-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Kettering'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 Kettering’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Kettering's own scale — its own ~219-day season between 28°F freezes, the 11,978 acres it covers and 2,036 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Kettering's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Kettering's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 2 and Nov 7 and the ~219-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,036 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Kettering, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Kettering's boundary and the 11,978 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~219-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Kettering's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Ketteringlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Kettering's 11,978 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Montgomery County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Montgomery 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 Montgomery County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Kettering's 11,978 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Kettering you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 11,978 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 Kettering-wide figureread your own land →
More in Ohio
Wider growing context
What grows across OhioKettering sits outside our named growing regions, so Ohio as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides