Lake Buckhorn, Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Lake Buckhorn, 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 Lake Buckhorn 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 Lake Buckhorn — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Lake Buckhorn — the short answer
Lake Buckhorn, Ohio: USDA zone 6a, about 196 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~196
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 6a is Lake Buckhorn's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lake Buckhorn's 196-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lake Buckhorn
Each reading below is measured for Lake Buckhorn itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLake Buckhorn runs about 196 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredLake Buckhorn sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Lake Buckhorn is in
Lake Buckhorn sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Lake Buckhorn's own centroid rather than borrowed from Holmes County.
What Grows in Lake Buckhorn
Every plant below cleared Lake Buckhorn's own zone 6a and its 196-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lake Buckhorn?
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 17; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 14 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 27 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Late in the year the fall bench takes over — quick greens, radishes, and garlic that repays you next summer.
Documented around Lake Buckhorn
Survey cells within 31 miles of Lake Buckhorn checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 33 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Lake Buckhorn
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lake Buckhorn. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- OH3800812 Holmes 01371 Production Well 0005Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- CHARLES E. EPPLEY ESTATEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- JEFF GRAVERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- CLARK ANNEX W HOLMES LOCAL SCHOOLSBrownfields · 1.8 mi
- LYNNETTE R. JACKSONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- CLARA G. BORNTRAGERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- PALLET ALL DIV SEMAC INDUSTRIES INC *Brownfields · 2.8 mi
- JAY PALLET ALL, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- SEMAC INDUSTRIES, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- PRIDE OF THE HILLS MANUFACTURING INCBrownfields · 3.9 mi
- PRIDE OF THE HILLS MFGBrownfields · 3.9 mi
- LAYLAND GENERAL STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lake Buckhorn'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 Lake Buckhorn.
Total Sites
105
within ~10 miles of Lake Buckhorn
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
6 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lake Buckhorn
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lake Buckhorn
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lake Buckhorn, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 67 sites within ~10 miles of Lake Buckhorn. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Lake Buckhorn
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 Lake Buckhorn average
Your land is one point inside Lake Buckhorn
Everything above resolves to Lake Buckhorn as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Lake Buckhorn Average
Lake Buckhorn Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Lake Buckhorn
- ●One soil character for all of Lake Buckhorn
- ●Frost dates read at Lake Buckhorn's scale: Apr 14 to Oct 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lake Buckhorn's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lake Buckhorn
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lake Buckhorn, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lake Buckhorn averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lake Buckhorn — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lake Buckhorn average
How we know this about Lake Buckhorn
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 Lake Buckhorn’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 Lake Buckhorn
When does frost risk typically end in Lake Buckhorn?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lake Buckhorn typically lands around Apr 14, 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 May 5.
When is the first frost in Lake Buckhorn?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lake Buckhorn typically arrives around Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 13, so the watching starts about Sep 27 — about 196 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lake Buckhorn?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lake Buckhorn sees about 196 frost-free days — roughly Apr 14 through Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 5 to Oct 13, about 161 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lake Buckhorn?
The federal record around Lake Buckhorn shows 105 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (67), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.8 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Lake Buckhorn?
From about Sep 27 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 Oct 27 (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 Oct 27. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Lake Buckhorn's scale — its 6a band and its 196-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lake Buckhorn'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 Lake Buckhorn’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Lake Buckhorn's own scale — its own ~196-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,124 acres it covers and 105 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lake Buckhorn's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lake Buckhorn's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 14 and Oct 27 and the ~196-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 105 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lake Buckhorn, the closest Nitrate record about 0.8 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lake Buckhorn's boundary and the 1,124 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~196-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Lake Buckhorn's own centroid, the Western Allegheny PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Lake Buckhorn 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 Lake Buckhorn's 1,124 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Holmes County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Holmes 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 Holmes County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Lake Buckhorn's 1,124 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lake Buckhorn you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,124 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.8 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 Lake Buckhorn-wide figureread your own land →
More in Ohio
Nearby growing guides