Rock Creek, Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
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 Rock Creek, 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 Rock Creek 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 Rock Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Rock Creek — the short answer
Rock Creek, Ohio: USDA zone 6a, about 205 days between hard freezes, across 562 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 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~205
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 562 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 Rock Creek's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Rock Creek's 205-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Rock Creek
Each reading below is measured for Rock Creek itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredRock Creek runs about 205 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
MeasuredRock Creek 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 Rock Creek is in
Rock Creek sits in the Erie Drift Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Rock Creek's own centroid rather than borrowed from Ashtabula County.
What Grows in Rock Creek
Every plant below cleared Rock Creek's own zone 6a and its 205-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Rock Creek?
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 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 8 — 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 Rock Creek
Spotted lanternfly documented 20 miles from Rock Creek, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Rock Creek
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Rock Creek. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MORGAN TOWNSHIP TRUSTEESUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- ROCK CREEK ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- ALLTEL SWITCHING STAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- THE COMBOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- FORMER FORD DEALERSHIPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- A & B SUNOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- FAMILY DOLLAR #7866Brownfields · 1700 ft
- OLD MILLSuperfund · 2400 ft
- ALERIS SPECIALTY PRODUCTS INC.- ROCK CREEK ALUMINUMToxics Release Inventory · 2600 ft
- ROCK CREEK ALUMINUM INCBrownfields · 2600 ft
- ROCK CREEK ALUMINUM INCToxics Release Inventory · 2600 ft
- CANTINI'S VILLAGE MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Rock Creek'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 Rock Creek.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Rock Creek
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Rock Creek
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Rock Creek, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Rock Creek — PFAS (3 sites) and Superfund (4 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.
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 Rock Creek
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 Rock Creek average
Your land is one point inside Rock Creek
Everything above resolves to Rock Creek as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 562 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 Rock Creek Average
Rock Creek Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Rock Creek
- ●One soil character for all of Rock Creek
- ●Frost dates read at Rock Creek's scale: Apr 17 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Rock Creek's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Rock Creek
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Rock Creek, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Rock Creek averages can't show:
We read public map data around Rock Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Rock Creek average
How we know this about Rock Creek
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 Rock Creek’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 Rock Creek
When does frost risk typically end in Rock Creek?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Rock Creek 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 Rock Creek?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Rock Creek typically arrives around Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 25, so the watching starts about Oct 9 — about 205 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Rock Creek?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Rock Creek sees about 205 frost-free days — roughly Apr 17 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 8 to Oct 25, about 170 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Rock Creek?
The federal record around Rock Creek runs heavier than most — 132 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (70), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Rock Creek?
From about Oct 9 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 8 (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 8. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Rock Creek's scale — its 6a band and its 205-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Rock Creek'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 Rock Creek’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Rock Creek's own scale — its own ~205-day season between 28°F freezes, the 562 acres it covers and 132 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Rock Creek's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Rock Creek's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 17 and Nov 8 and the ~205-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 132 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Rock Creek, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Rock Creek's boundary and the 562 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~205-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Rock Creek's own centroid, the Erie Drift PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Rock Creeklydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Rock Creek's 562 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Ashtabula County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Ashtabula 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 Ashtabula County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Rock Creek's 562 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Rock Creek you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 562 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Rock Creek-wide figureread your own land →