Fort Payne, 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.
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 Fort Payne, 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 Fort Payne 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 Fort Payne — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Fort Payne — the short answer
Fort Payne, Alabama: USDA zone 7b, about 232 days between hard freezes, across 36K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~232
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 36K 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 Fort Payne's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Fort Payne's 232-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Fort Payne
Each reading below is measured for Fort Payne itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFort Payne runs about 232 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
MeasuredFort Payne 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 Fort Payne is in
Fort Payne sits in the Southwestern Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Fort Payne's own centroid rather than borrowed from DeKalb County.
What Grows in Fort Payne
Every plant below cleared Fort Payne's own zone 7b and its 232-day season. Each card opens that plant's Alabama profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Fort Payne?
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 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 23 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 10 — 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 Fort Payne
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Fort Payne. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DISCOUNT FOOD MART #145Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- FT PAYNE QUARRYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- FORT PAYNE FOOD AND TOBACCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- ROGERS CONOCO # 1Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- SCHOOL BUS GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- JR FOOD MART #53Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- PARKERS CLEANERSBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- WOODSON JONES CHEVROLET INCBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- FOODLAND PLUS FUEL CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- EXPRESS OIL CHANGE & TIRE ENGINEERS--FORT PAYNEBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- V I PREWETT & SON INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- CHEROKEE HOSIERY INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Fort Payne'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 Fort Payne.
Total Sites
238
within ~10 miles of Fort Payne
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
14 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Fort Payne
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Fort Payne
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Fort Payne, CAFO runs higher than the national average — 35 sites within ~10 miles of Fort Payne. 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.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check your specific parcel in Fort Payne
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 Fort Payne average
Your land is one point inside Fort Payne
Everything above resolves to Fort Payne as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 36K 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 city 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 Fort Payne Average
Fort Payne Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Fort Payne
- ●One soil character for all of Fort Payne
- ●Frost dates read at Fort Payne's scale: Mar 23 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Fort Payne's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Fort Payne
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Fort Payne, Alabama — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Fort Payne averages can't show:
We read public map data around Fort Payne — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Fort Payne average
How we know this about Fort Payne
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Fort Payne’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Fort Payne
When does frost risk typically end in Fort Payne?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Fort Payne typically lands around Mar 23, 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 13.
When is the first frost in Fort Payne?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Fort Payne typically arrives around Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 27, so the watching starts about Oct 11 — about 232 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Fort Payne?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Fort Payne sees about 232 frost-free days — roughly Mar 23 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 13 to Oct 27, about 197 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Fort Payne?
The federal record around Fort Payne is a meaningful one — 238 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (132), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Fort Payne?
From about Oct 11 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 10 (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 10. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Fort Payne's scale — its 7b band and its 232-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Fort Payne'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 Fort Payne’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Fort Payne's own scale — its own ~232-day season between 28°F freezes, the 36,100 acres it covers and 238 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Fort Payne's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Fort Payne's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 23 and Nov 10 and the ~232-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 238 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Fort Payne, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Fort Payne's boundary and the 36,100 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~232-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Fort Payne's own centroid, the Southwestern AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Fort Payne's 36,100 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom DeKalb County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom DeKalb 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 DeKalb County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Fort Payne's 36,100 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Fort Payne you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 36,100 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Fort Payne-wide figureread your own land →
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