Cherokee, Alabama, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Cherokee, 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 Cherokee 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 Cherokee — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Cherokee — the short answer
Cherokee, Alabama: USDA zone 7b, about 241 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~241
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town 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 7b is Cherokee's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cherokee's 241-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cherokee
Each reading below is measured for Cherokee itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCherokee runs about 241 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
MeasuredCherokee sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Cherokee is in
Cherokee sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Cherokee's own centroid rather than borrowed from Colbert County.
What Grows in Cherokee
Every plant below cleared Cherokee's own zone 7b and its 241-day season. Each card opens that plant's Alabama profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Cherokee?
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 Feb 16; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 16 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 12 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
What's on the federal record near Cherokee
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cherokee. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- USS AGRI-CHEMICALSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- WEAVER GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- CHEROKEE EXXONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- CHEROKEE CHEVRONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- CITY OF CHEROKEE POLICE & GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- WALDREPS 66 (CIRCLE A)Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Well (E-69) U.S. GEOL. SURVEY Colbert Cnty ALNitrate · 1.0 mi
- Well E-65 TOWN OF CHEROKEE Colbert County AlNitrate · 1.0 mi
- PARTY PAK #2Underground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- AIRCO B.O.C. INDUSTRIAL GASESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- DRAVO BASIC MATERIALS OF CHEROKEEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- Well (E-68)USGS Colbert Cnty ALNitrate · 1.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cherokee'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 Cherokee.
Total Sites
61
within ~10 miles of Cherokee
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cherokee
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cherokee
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cherokee, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Cherokee — Toxics Release Inventory (9 sites) and Nitrate (16 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Cherokee
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 Cherokee average
Your land is one point inside Cherokee
Everything above resolves to Cherokee 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 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 Cherokee Average
Cherokee Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Cherokee
- ●One soil character for all of Cherokee
- ●Frost dates read at Cherokee's scale: Mar 16 to Nov 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cherokee's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cherokee
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cherokee, Alabama — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cherokee averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cherokee — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cherokee average
How we know this about Cherokee
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 Cherokee’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 Cherokee
When does frost risk typically end in Cherokee?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cherokee typically lands around Mar 16, 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 6.
When is the first frost in Cherokee?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cherokee typically arrives around Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 29, so the watching starts about Oct 13 — about 241 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Cherokee?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cherokee sees about 241 frost-free days — roughly Mar 16 through Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 6 to Oct 29, about 206 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cherokee?
The federal record around Cherokee is a meaningful one — 61 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (27), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Cherokee?
From about Oct 13 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 12 (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 12. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Cherokee's scale — its 7b band and its 241-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cherokee'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 Cherokee’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Cherokee's own scale — its own ~241-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,418 acres it covers and 61 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cherokee's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cherokee's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 16 and Nov 12 and the ~241-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 61 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cherokee, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cherokee's boundary and the 1,418 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~241-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Cherokee's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Cherokee's 1,418 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Colbert County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Colbert County
- The growing challenges every Alabama grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Alabama
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Colbert County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Cherokee's 1,418 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cherokee you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,418 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 Cherokee-wide figureread your own land →