Gaylesville, 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 Gaylesville, 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 Gaylesville 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 Gaylesville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Gaylesville — the short answer
Gaylesville, Alabama: USDA zone 8a, about 240 days between hard freezes, across 888 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~240
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 888 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 Gaylesville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Gaylesville's 240-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Gaylesville
Each reading below is measured for Gaylesville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredGaylesville runs about 240 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
MeasuredGaylesville 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 Gaylesville is in
Gaylesville sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Gaylesville's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cherokee County.
What Grows in Gaylesville
Every plant below cleared Gaylesville's own zone 8a and its 240-day season. Each card opens that plant's Alabama profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Gaylesville?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 19; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 19 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 14 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
What's on the federal record near Gaylesville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Gaylesville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- GAYLESVILLE 4-WAY STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- Well (J-5)GAYLESVILLE HIGH SCHOOL Cherokee CntyNitrate · 950 ft
- BOARD OF ED GAYLESVILLE SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- GAYLESVILLE HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 1400 ft
- BLACKS HANDI MART & RESTAURANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- BEECHWOOD POULTRYCAFO · 0.7 mi
- OPEN ACRE FARMCAFO · 0.9 mi
- CHEROKEE CO BOARD OF ED GAYLESVILLEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- BOGAN MOUNTAIN POULTRYCAFO · 2.1 mi
- HARTON'S AMOCO & NURSERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- CEDAR BLUFF EXXON SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- WAYNE STOREY SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Gaylesville'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 Gaylesville.
Total Sites
82
within ~10 miles of Gaylesville
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
17 concentrated animal feeding operations
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Gaylesville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Gaylesville
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Gaylesville, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Gaylesville — CAFO (17 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (51 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.
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 Gaylesville
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 Gaylesville average
Your land is one point inside Gaylesville
Everything above resolves to Gaylesville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 888 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 Gaylesville Average
Gaylesville Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Gaylesville
- ●One soil character for all of Gaylesville
- ●Frost dates read at Gaylesville's scale: Mar 19 to Nov 14
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Gaylesville's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Gaylesville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Gaylesville, Alabama — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Gaylesville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Gaylesville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Gaylesville average
How we know this about Gaylesville
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 Gaylesville’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 Gaylesville
When does frost risk typically end in Gaylesville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Gaylesville typically lands around Mar 19, 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 9.
When is the first frost in Gaylesville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Gaylesville typically arrives around Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 31, so the watching starts about Oct 15 — about 240 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Gaylesville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Gaylesville sees about 240 frost-free days — roughly Mar 19 through Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 9 to Oct 31, about 205 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Gaylesville?
The federal record around Gaylesville shows 82 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (51), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Gaylesville?
From about Oct 15 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 14 (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 14. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Gaylesville's scale — its 8a band and its 240-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Gaylesville'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 Gaylesville’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Gaylesville's own scale — its own ~240-day season between 28°F freezes, the 888 acres it covers and 82 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Gaylesville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Gaylesville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 19 and Nov 14 and the ~240-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 82 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Gaylesville, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Gaylesville's boundary and the 888 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~240-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Gaylesville's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Gaylesville's 888 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cherokee County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cherokee 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 Cherokee County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Gaylesville's 888 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Gaylesville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 888 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Gaylesville-wide figureread your own land →
More in Alabama
Growing region
Nearby growing guides