New Athens, Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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 New Athens, 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 New Athens 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 New Athens — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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New Athens — the short answer
New Athens, Ohio: USDA zone 6b, about 217 days between hard freezes, across 184 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~217
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 184 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 New Athens's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against New Athens's 217-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in New Athens
Each reading below is measured for New Athens itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNew Athens runs about 217 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
MeasuredNew Athens 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 New Athens is in
New Athens sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at New Athens's own centroid rather than borrowed from Harrison County.
What Grows in New Athens
Every plant below cleared New Athens's own zone 6b and its 217-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in New Athens?
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 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 9 — 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 New Athens
Spotted lanternfly documented 16 miles from New Athens, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near New Athens
Closest first, within ~10 miles of New Athens. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FRANK SPANOUnderground Storage Tanks · 150 ft
- MULL MOTORS INCBrownfields · 200 ft
- FORMER GAS STAUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- DON WATSONUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- HARRISON HILLS SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- DOC'S CARRYOUT/ GASUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- BRITISH PETROLEUM OIL CO HARRISVILLE BULK PLANT *Brownfields · 3.3 mi
- HARRISVILLE BULK PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
- DOMINION EAST OHIO - BELMONT SHOPBrownfields · 3.4 mi
- JAB TRUCKINGBrownfields · 3.6 mi
- HARRISON COUNTY AIRPORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- DIAL EASTERN STATES PAINTING INCBrownfields · 3.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from New Athens'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 New Athens.
Total Sites
177
within ~10 miles of New Athens
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of New Athens
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of New Athens
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around New Athens, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of New Athens — PFAS (3 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (113 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in New Athens
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 New Athens average
Your land is one point inside New Athens
Everything above resolves to New Athens as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 184 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 New Athens Average
New Athens Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across New Athens
- ●One soil character for all of New Athens
- ●Frost dates read at New Athens's scale: Apr 6 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not New Athens's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in New Athens
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in New Athens, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that New Athens averages can't show:
We read public map data around New Athens — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the New Athens average
How we know this about New Athens
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 New Athens’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 New Athens
When does frost risk typically end in New Athens?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in New Athens typically lands around Apr 6, 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 27.
When is the first frost in New Athens?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in New Athens typically arrives around Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 26, so the watching starts about Oct 10 — about 217 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in New Athens?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, New Athens sees about 217 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 26, about 182 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in New Athens?
The federal record around New Athens is a meaningful one — 177 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (113), 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 New Athens?
From about Oct 10 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 9 (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 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at New Athens's scale — its 6b band and its 217-day season. Your yard writes its own version of New Athens'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 New Athens’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at New Athens's own scale — its own ~217-day season between 28°F freezes, the 184 acres it covers and 177 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- New Athens's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- New Athens's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 6 and Nov 9 and the ~217-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 177 documented contamination sites on the federal record near New Athens, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- New Athens's boundary and the 184 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~217-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at New Athens's own centroid, the Western Allegheny PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of New Athenslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so New Athens's 184 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Harrison County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Harrison 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 Harrison County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among New Athens's 184 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of New Athens you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 184 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 New Athens-wide figureread your own land →
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