Coats Bend, Alabama, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
The conditions favor cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Coats Bend, 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 Coats Bend 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 Coats Bend — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Coats Bend — the short answer
Coats Bend, Alabama: USDA zone 8a, about 252 days between hard freezes, across 5K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~252
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 5K 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 Coats Bend's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Coats Bend's 252-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Coats Bend
Each reading below is measured for Coats Bend itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCoats Bend runs about 252 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
MeasuredCoats Bend 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 Coats Bend is in
Coats Bend sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Coats Bend's own centroid rather than borrowed from Etowah County.
What Grows in Coats Bend
Every plant below cleared Coats Bend's own zone 8a and its 252-day season. Each card opens that plant's Alabama profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Coats Bend?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 14 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 21 — 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 Coats Bend
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Coats Bend. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SAMCO EXPRESS MART 38Underground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- PATTERSON GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- WALTERS GROCERIESUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- GASTON HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 3.0 mi
- COOSA CHRISTIAN SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
- RJ'S #15 KELLYS SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- HOLLAR CO CLOSED (411 & BOYD)Underground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- HOKES BLUFF WATER BOARDPFAS · 3.7 mi
- NORTHEAST ETOWAH COUNTY WATER CO-OPPFAS · 3.8 mi
- CROFT FERRY GRO MORRIS OILUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.9 mi
- BALLPLAY GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- HOKES BLUFF CONSTRUCTION COUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Coats Bend'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 Coats Bend.
Total Sites
311
within ~10 miles of Coats Bend
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
5 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Coats Bend
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Coats Bend
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Coats Bend, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Coats Bend — CAFO (5 sites) and Superfund (5 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.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Coats Bend
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 Coats Bend average
Your land is one point inside Coats Bend
Everything above resolves to Coats Bend as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 5K 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 Coats Bend Average
Coats Bend Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Coats Bend
- ●One soil character for all of Coats Bend
- ●Frost dates read at Coats Bend's scale: Mar 14 to Nov 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Coats Bend's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Coats Bend
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Coats Bend, Alabama — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Coats Bend averages can't show:
We read public map data around Coats Bend — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Coats Bend average
How we know this about Coats Bend
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 Coats Bend’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 Coats Bend
When does frost risk typically end in Coats Bend?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Coats Bend typically lands around Mar 14, 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 4.
When is the first frost in Coats Bend?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Coats Bend typically arrives around Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 7, so the watching starts about Oct 22 — about 252 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Coats Bend?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Coats Bend sees about 252 frost-free days — roughly Mar 14 through Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 4 to Nov 7, about 217 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Coats Bend?
The federal record around Coats Bend is a meaningful one — 311 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (222), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.7 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 Coats Bend?
From about Oct 22 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 21 (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 21. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Coats Bend's scale — its 8a band and its 252-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Coats Bend'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 Coats Bend’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Coats Bend's own scale — its own ~252-day season between 28°F freezes, the 5,472 acres it covers and 311 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Coats Bend's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Coats Bend's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 14 and Nov 21 and the ~252-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 311 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Coats Bend, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Coats Bend's boundary and the 5,472 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~252-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Coats Bend's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Coats Bend's 5,472 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Etowah County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Etowah 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 Etowah County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Coats Bend's 5,472 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Coats Bend you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 5,472 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.7 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 Coats Bend-wide figureread your own land →
More in Alabama
Growing region
Nearby growing guides