Port Clinton, Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Expect cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Port Clinton, 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 Port Clinton 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 Port Clinton — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Port Clinton — the short answer
Port Clinton, Ohio: USDA zone 6b, about 229 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~229
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City 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 6b is Port Clinton's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Port Clinton's 229-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Port Clinton
Each reading below is measured for Port Clinton itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPort Clinton runs about 229 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
MeasuredPort Clinton 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 Port Clinton is in
Port Clinton sits in the Huron/Erie Lake Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Port Clinton's own centroid rather than borrowed from Ottawa County.
What Grows in Port Clinton
Every plant below cleared Port Clinton's own zone 6b and its 229-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Port Clinton?
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 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 16 — 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 Port Clinton
Spotted lanternfly documented 13 miles from Port Clinton, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Port Clinton
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Port Clinton. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- OTTAWA COUNTY COMMISSIONERSUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- US BANKBrownfields · 900 ft
- FRENCH TEX CLEANERSBrownfields · 950 ft
- GTE NORTH, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- PORT CLINTON WATER PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- CITCO QUICK MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- LAKELAND MOTEL, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- BP OIL CO. #06646Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- WILLIAM J. LYNCHUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- FISHERMAN'S WHARFUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- CITY OF PORT CLINTONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- PIER ONE, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Port Clinton'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 Port Clinton.
Total Sites
198
within ~10 miles of Port Clinton
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Port Clinton
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Port Clinton
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Port Clinton, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Port Clinton — PFAS (3 sites) and Superfund (3 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Port Clinton
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 Port Clinton average
Your land is one point inside Port Clinton
Everything above resolves to Port Clinton 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 city 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 Port Clinton Average
Port Clinton Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Port Clinton
- ●One soil character for all of Port Clinton
- ●Frost dates read at Port Clinton's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Port Clinton's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Port Clinton
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Port Clinton, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Port Clinton averages can't show:
We read public map data around Port Clinton — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Port Clinton average
How we know this about Port Clinton
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Port Clinton’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Port Clinton
When does frost risk typically end in Port Clinton?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Port Clinton typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
When is the first frost in Port Clinton?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Port Clinton typically arrives around Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 2, so the watching starts about Oct 17 — about 229 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Port Clinton?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Port Clinton sees about 229 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Nov 2, about 194 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Port Clinton?
The federal record around Port Clinton is a meaningful one — 198 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (131), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Port Clinton?
From about Oct 17 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 16 (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 16. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Port Clinton's scale — its 6b band and its 229-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Port Clinton'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 Port Clinton’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Port Clinton's own scale — its own ~229-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,364 acres it covers and 198 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Port Clinton's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Port Clinton's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 16 and the ~229-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 198 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Port Clinton, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Port Clinton's boundary and the 1,364 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~229-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Port Clinton's own centroid, the Huron/Erie Lake PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Port Clintonlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Port Clinton's 1,364 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Ottawa County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Ottawa 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 Ottawa County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Port Clinton's 1,364 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Port Clinton you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,364 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Port Clinton-wide figureread your own land →