Fairview, Alabama, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Growers here do well with cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Fairview, 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 Fairview 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 Fairview — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Fairview — the short answer
Fairview, Alabama: USDA zone 8a, about 249 days between hard freezes, across 1K 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 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~249
- 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 8a is Fairview's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Fairview's 249-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Fairview
Each reading below is measured for Fairview itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFairview runs about 249 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
MeasuredFairview 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 Fairview is in
Fairview sits in the Southwestern Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Fairview's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cullman County.
What Grows in Fairview
Every plant below cleared Fairview's own zone 8a and its 249-day season. Each card opens that plant's Alabama profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Fairview?
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 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 18 — 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 Fairview
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Fairview. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FAIRVIEW FUEL CITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- FAIRVIEW SUPERETTEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- CULLMAN FAIRVIEW CO-11769Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- SECOND CHANCE FARMSCAFO · 1.7 mi
- COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- BROCK EGG FARM FAIRVIEWUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- BLACK FARMS INCCAFO · 2.1 mi
- MICHAEL WILLIAMSCAFO · 2.1 mi
- C & R HAYNES FARMCAFO · 2.1 mi
- ADAM DAVISCAFO · 2.1 mi
- DUSTIN FULLILOVE FARMCAFO · 2.4 mi
- WILLIAMS FARMCAFO · 2.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Fairview'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 Fairview.
Total Sites
163
within ~10 miles of Fairview
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Fairview
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Fairview
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Fairview, CAFO runs higher than the national average — 63 sites within ~10 miles of Fairview. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check your specific parcel in Fairview
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 Fairview average
Your land is one point inside Fairview
Everything above resolves to Fairview 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 Fairview Average
Fairview Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Fairview
- ●One soil character for all of Fairview
- ●Frost dates read at Fairview's scale: Mar 14 to Nov 18
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Fairview's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Fairview
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Fairview, Alabama — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Fairview averages can't show:
We read public map data around Fairview — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Fairview average
How we know this about Fairview
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 Fairview’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 Fairview
When does frost risk typically end in Fairview?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Fairview 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 Fairview?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Fairview typically arrives around Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 4, so the watching starts about Oct 19 — about 249 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Fairview?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Fairview sees about 249 frost-free days — roughly Mar 14 through Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 4 to Nov 4, about 214 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Fairview?
The federal record around Fairview is a meaningful one — 163 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (74), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Fairview?
From about Oct 19 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 18 (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 18. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Fairview's scale — its 8a band and its 249-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Fairview'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 Fairview’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Fairview's own scale — its own ~249-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,255 acres it covers and 163 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Fairview's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Fairview's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 14 and Nov 18 and the ~249-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 163 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Fairview, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Fairview's boundary and the 1,255 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~249-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Fairview's own centroid, the Southwestern AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Fairview's 1,255 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cullman County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cullman 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 Cullman County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Fairview's 1,255 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Fairview you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,255 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Fairview-wide figureread your own land →
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