New Madison, 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.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in New Madison, 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 Madison 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 Madison — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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New Madison — the short answer
New Madison, Ohio: USDA zone 6a, about 201 days between hard freezes, across 303 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~201
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 303 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 New Madison's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against New Madison's 201-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in New Madison
Each reading below is measured for New Madison itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNew Madison runs about 201 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 Madison 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 New Madison is in
New Madison sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at New Madison's own centroid rather than borrowed from Darke County.
What Grows in New Madison
Every plant below cleared New Madison's own zone 6a and its 201-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in New Madison?
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 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 28 — 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 Madison
Survey cells within 31 miles of New Madison checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 44 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near New Madison
Closest first, within ~10 miles of New Madison. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- RICHARD PETERS PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- DOLLAR GENERAL STORE #12322Brownfields · 1900 ft
- TRI-VILLAGE HIGH SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- DWANE R. MCCLOTHINUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- NEW MADISON MINI MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- FLORIDA PRODUCTION ENGINEERING (0819100218)Toxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- EG INDUSTRIESToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- QUAL-TEC, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- D-175 MIAM NAWQA LUS WELL BVAS AG-10Nitrate · 1.3 mi
- SHAMROCK MATERIALS FT JEFFERSON LIMESTONEBrownfields · 3.1 mi
- VALLEY ASPHALT-WALLS FORT JEFFERSONBrownfields · 3.4 mi
- PR-70Nitrate · 4.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from New Madison'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 Madison.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of New Madison
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of New Madison
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around New Madison, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of New Madison — Nitrate (66 sites) and Superfund (3 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in New Madison
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 Madison average
Your land is one point inside New Madison
Everything above resolves to New Madison as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 303 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 Madison Average
New Madison Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across New Madison
- ●One soil character for all of New Madison
- ●Frost dates read at New Madison's scale: Apr 10 to Oct 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not New Madison's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in New Madison
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in New Madison, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that New Madison averages can't show:
We read public map data around New Madison — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the New Madison average
How we know this about New Madison
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 Madison’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 Madison
When does frost risk typically end in New Madison?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in New Madison typically lands around Apr 10, 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 1.
When is the first frost in New Madison?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in New Madison typically arrives around Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 14, so the watching starts about Sep 28 — about 201 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in New Madison?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, New Madison sees about 201 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Oct 14, about 166 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in New Madison?
The federal record around New Madison is a meaningful one — 166 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (66), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles 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 Madison?
From about Sep 28 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 28 (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 28. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at New Madison's scale — its 6a band and its 201-day season. Your yard writes its own version of New Madison'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 Madison’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at New Madison's own scale — its own ~201-day season between 28°F freezes, the 303 acres it covers and 166 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- New Madison's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- New Madison's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 10 and Oct 28 and the ~201-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 166 documented contamination sites on the federal record near New Madison, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- New Madison's boundary and the 303 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~201-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at New Madison's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around New Madison 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 New Madison's 303 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Darke County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Darke 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 Darke County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among New Madison's 303 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of New Madison you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 303 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 New Madison-wide figureread your own land →
More in Ohio
Wider growing context
What grows across OhioNew Madison sits outside our named growing regions, so Ohio as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides