Mantua, Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Mantua, 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 Mantua 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 Mantua — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Mantua — the short answer
Mantua, Ohio: USDA zone 6a, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 909 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 17
- 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
- ~200
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 909 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 Mantua's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Mantua's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Mantua
Each reading below is measured for Mantua itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMantua runs about 200 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
MeasuredMantua 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 Mantua is in
Mantua sits in the Erie Drift Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Mantua's own centroid rather than borrowed from Portage County.
What Grows in Mantua
Every plant below cleared Mantua's own zone 6a and its 200-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Mantua?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 20; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 17 (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. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Mantua
Spotted lanternfly documented 18 miles from Mantua, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Mantua
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Mantua. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MANTUA GRAIN & SUPPLYUnderground Storage Tanks · 400 ft
- Mantua EZ MartUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- MANTALINE CORPBrownfields · 850 ft
- MANTALINE CORPToxics Release Inventory · 850 ft
- EATON CORP FKA SAINT GOBAINToxics Release Inventory · 1000 ft
- SERVICE DEPTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- VILLAGE OF MANTUAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- STAMM CONTRACTING CO., INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- PERFECT CHOICE AUTO COLLISION INC.Brownfields · 1800 ft
- BUCKEYE PIPE LINE COMPANY, L.P.Underground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- CRESTWOOD BUS GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- UNKNOWNUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Mantua'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 Mantua.
Total Sites
421
within ~10 miles of Mantua
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
7 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Mantua
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Mantua
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Mantua, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Mantua — Toxics Release Inventory (58 sites) and PFAS (5 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Mantua
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 Mantua average
Your land is one point inside Mantua
Everything above resolves to Mantua as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 909 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 Mantua Average
Mantua Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Mantua
- ●One soil character for all of Mantua
- ●Frost dates read at Mantua's scale: Apr 17 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Mantua's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Mantua
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Mantua, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Mantua averages can't show:
We read public map data around Mantua — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mantua average
How we know this about Mantua
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 Mantua’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 Mantua
When does frost risk typically end in Mantua?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Mantua typically lands around Apr 17, 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 8.
When is the first frost in Mantua?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Mantua 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 200 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Mantua?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Mantua sees about 200 frost-free days — roughly Apr 17 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 8 to Oct 20, about 165 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Mantua?
The federal record around Mantua is a meaningful one — 421 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (175), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Mantua?
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 Mantua's scale — its 6a band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Mantua'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 Mantua’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Mantua's own scale — its own ~200-day season between 28°F freezes, the 909 acres it covers and 421 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Mantua's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Mantua's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 17 and Nov 3 and the ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 421 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Mantua, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Mantua's boundary and the 909 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~200-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Mantua's own centroid, the Erie Drift PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Mantualydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Mantua's 909 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Portage County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Portage 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 Portage County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Mantua's 909 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Mantua you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 909 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Mantua-wide figureread your own land →