Cherokee Ridge, Alabama, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Cherokee Ridge, 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 Ridge 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 Ridge — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Cherokee Ridge — the short answer
Cherokee Ridge, Alabama: USDA zone 8a, about 255 days between hard freezes, across 566 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~255
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 566 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 8a is Cherokee Ridge's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cherokee Ridge's 255-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cherokee Ridge
Each reading below is measured for Cherokee Ridge itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCherokee Ridge runs about 255 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 Ridge sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
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 Ridge is in
Cherokee Ridge sits in the Southwestern Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Cherokee Ridge's own centroid rather than borrowed from Marshall County.
What Grows in Cherokee Ridge
Every plant below cleared Cherokee Ridge's own zone 8a and its 255-day season. Each card opens that plant's Alabama profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Cherokee Ridge?
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 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 23 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
What's on the federal record near Cherokee Ridge
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cherokee Ridge. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ALLEN'S CROSSROADSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- BRINDLEE MOUNTAIN EXXONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- PATTERSON PRECISION COMPONENTSBrownfields · 1.7 mi
- SKIDMORE FARMSCAFO · 1.9 mi
- BERFORD TYLERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- BURDEN-CHILDERS FARMS, INCCAFO · 2.6 mi
- KENNEDY INDUSTRIES FEED & SEEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
- HONDA ROSA FARMSCAFO · 3.3 mi
- WILLIAMS SERVICE JONES VALLEYUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
- RACEWAY #0916 MORGAN CITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- M&W GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- Well NEWSOME SINKS Morgan Cnty ALNitrate · 3.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cherokee Ridge'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 Ridge.
Total Sites
175
within ~10 miles of Cherokee Ridge
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
8 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cherokee Ridge
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cherokee Ridge
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cherokee Ridge, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Cherokee Ridge — CAFO (21 sites) and PFAS (3 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Cherokee Ridge
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 Ridge average
Your land is one point inside Cherokee Ridge
Everything above resolves to Cherokee Ridge as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 566 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 Ridge Average
Cherokee Ridge Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Cherokee Ridge
- ●One soil character for all of Cherokee Ridge
- ●Frost dates read at Cherokee Ridge's scale: Mar 13 to Nov 23
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cherokee Ridge's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cherokee Ridge
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cherokee Ridge, Alabama — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cherokee Ridge averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cherokee Ridge — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cherokee Ridge average
How we know this about Cherokee Ridge
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 Ridge’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 Ridge
When does frost risk typically end in Cherokee Ridge?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cherokee Ridge typically lands around Mar 13, 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 3.
When is the first frost in Cherokee Ridge?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cherokee Ridge typically arrives around Nov 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 9, so the watching starts about Oct 24 — about 255 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Cherokee Ridge?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cherokee Ridge sees about 255 frost-free days — roughly Mar 13 through Nov 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 3 to Nov 9, about 220 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cherokee Ridge?
The federal record around Cherokee Ridge shows 175 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (108), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.3 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Cherokee Ridge?
From about Oct 24 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 23 (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 23. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Cherokee Ridge's scale — its 8a band and its 255-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cherokee Ridge'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 Ridge’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Cherokee Ridge's own scale — its own ~255-day season between 28°F freezes, the 566 acres it covers and 175 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cherokee Ridge's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cherokee Ridge's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 13 and Nov 23 and the ~255-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 175 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cherokee Ridge, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cherokee Ridge's boundary and the 566 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~255-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Cherokee Ridge's own centroid, the Southwestern AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Cherokee Ridge's 566 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Marshall County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Marshall 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 Marshall County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Cherokee Ridge's 566 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cherokee Ridge you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 566 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.3 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 Ridge-wide figureread your own land →
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