Dutton, Alabama, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Dutton, 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 Dutton 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 Dutton — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Dutton — the short answer
Dutton, Alabama: USDA zone 7b, about 226 days between hard freezes, across 553 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~226
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 553 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 Dutton's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Dutton's 226-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Dutton
Each reading below is measured for Dutton itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDutton runs about 226 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
MeasuredDutton 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 Dutton is in
Dutton sits in the Southwestern Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Dutton's own centroid rather than borrowed from Jackson County.
What Grows in Dutton
Every plant below cleared Dutton's own zone 7b and its 226-day season. Each card opens that plant's Alabama profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Dutton?
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 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 25 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 6 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
What's on the federal record near Dutton
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Dutton. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DUTTON SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- DUTTON CHEVRONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- REEDS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- GLORY HILL FARMSCAFO · 1.0 mi
- ALDOT NORTH REGION - GUNTERSVILLE AREA-DUTTON DISTRICTBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- ALDOT DUTTON DIV 1 DIST 3Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- MORNING STAR FARMCAFO · 2.1 mi
- GREEN ACRES STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- SOUTHERN BELLE QUICK STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- PISGAH TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- PATS 4-WAYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- MCCLENDON'S SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Dutton'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 Dutton.
Total Sites
273
within ~10 miles of Dutton
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Dutton
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Dutton
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Dutton, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Dutton — CAFO (40 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (170 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Dutton
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 Dutton average
Your land is one point inside Dutton
Everything above resolves to Dutton as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 553 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 Dutton Average
Dutton Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Dutton
- ●One soil character for all of Dutton
- ●Frost dates read at Dutton's scale: Mar 25 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Dutton's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Dutton
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Dutton, Alabama — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Dutton averages can't show:
We read public map data around Dutton — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Dutton average
How we know this about Dutton
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 Dutton’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 Dutton
When does frost risk typically end in Dutton?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Dutton typically lands around Mar 25, 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 15.
When is the first frost in Dutton?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Dutton typically arrives around Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 23, so the watching starts about Oct 7 — about 226 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Dutton?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Dutton sees about 226 frost-free days — roughly Mar 25 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 15 to Oct 23, about 191 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Dutton?
The federal record around Dutton is a meaningful one — 273 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (170), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Dutton?
From about Oct 7 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 6 (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 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Dutton's scale — its 7b band and its 226-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Dutton'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 Dutton’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Dutton's own scale — its own ~226-day season between 28°F freezes, the 553 acres it covers and 273 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Dutton's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Dutton's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 25 and Nov 6 and the ~226-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 273 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Dutton, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Dutton's boundary and the 553 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~226-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Dutton's own centroid, the Southwestern AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Dutton's 553 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Jackson County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Jackson 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 Jackson County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Dutton's 553 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Dutton you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 553 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Dutton-wide figureread your own land →
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