Old Washington, Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Old Washington, 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 Old Washington 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 Old Washington — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Old Washington — the short answer
Old Washington, Ohio: USDA zone 6b, about 206 days between hard freezes, across 430 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~206
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 430 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 Old Washington's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Old Washington's 206-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Old Washington
Each reading below is measured for Old Washington itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredOld Washington runs about 206 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
MeasuredOld Washington 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 Old Washington is in
Old Washington sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Old Washington's own centroid rather than borrowed from Guernsey County.
What Grows in Old Washington
Every plant below cleared Old Washington's own zone 6b and its 206-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Old Washington?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. 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 Nov 2 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Old Washington
Spotted lanternfly documented 23 miles from Old Washington, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Old Washington
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Old Washington. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- EAST GUERNSEY LOCAL SCHOOLSUnderground Storage Tanks · 400 ft
- KAPLET'S MARATHONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- CORRICK'S MARATHONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- GO-MART STORE #057Underground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- GREAT PLAINS OILFIELD RENTAL LLCBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- SHENANDOAH INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- SHENANDOAH TRUCKING PLAZABrownfields · 0.6 mi
- BJ''S WHOLESALE CLUB#10Underground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- NOLL'S ASHLANDUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- SALT FORK STATE PARK - GOLF COURSE *Brownfields · 3.2 mi
- SALT FORK STATE PARK LODGEBrownfields · 3.2 mi
- ODNR SALT FORK STATE PARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Old Washington'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 Old Washington.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Old Washington
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Old Washington
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Old Washington, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Old Washington — Toxics Release Inventory (16 sites) and Superfund (3 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Old Washington
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 Old Washington average
Your land is one point inside Old Washington
Everything above resolves to Old Washington as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 430 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 Old Washington Average
Old Washington Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Old Washington
- ●One soil character for all of Old Washington
- ●Frost dates read at Old Washington's scale: Apr 10 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Old Washington's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Old Washington
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Old Washington, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Old Washington averages can't show:
We read public map data around Old Washington — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Old Washington average
How we know this about Old Washington
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 Old Washington’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 Old Washington
When does frost risk typically end in Old Washington?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Old Washington 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 Old Washington?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Old Washington typically arrives around Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 19, so the watching starts about Oct 3 — about 206 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Old Washington?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Old Washington sees about 206 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Oct 19, about 171 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Old Washington?
The federal record around Old Washington is a meaningful one — 225 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (124), 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 Old Washington?
From about Oct 3 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 2 (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 2. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Old Washington's scale — its 6b band and its 206-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Old Washington'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 Old Washington’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Old Washington's own scale — its own ~206-day season between 28°F freezes, the 430 acres it covers and 225 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Old Washington's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Old Washington's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 10 and Nov 2 and the ~206-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 225 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Old Washington, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Old Washington's boundary and the 430 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~206-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Old Washington's own centroid, the Western Allegheny PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Old Washingtonlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Old Washington's 430 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Guernsey County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Guernsey 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 Guernsey County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Old Washington's 430 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Old Washington you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 430 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 Old Washington-wide figureread your own land →
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