Botkins, OH 45306 Frost Dates
45306, near Botkins, OH: the frost window
Around 04/27 is the usual last spring frost, about 242 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/20, roughly 175 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 6a (-10 to -5°F average annual minimum) comes from the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map; the frost dates above are the 1991-2020 normal at the nearest reporting NOAA station for Botkins, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Botkins's growing season runs out in roughly 8 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
Why 04/27 isn't a guarantee
04/27 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/12 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/12 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Botkins against the rest of the dataset
About 175 days separate Botkins's last and first frost, putting it 27,064 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within OH, it ranks 1,047 of 1,383.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 45306: the frost range, on how to read the range around Botkins's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Botkins can differ from the 45306 normal.