Piedmont, Alabama, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Expect cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Piedmont, 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 Piedmont 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 Piedmont — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Piedmont — the short answer
Piedmont, Alabama: USDA zone 8a, about 244 days between hard freezes, across 6K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 15
- 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
- ~244
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 6K 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 Piedmont's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Piedmont's 244-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Piedmont
Each reading below is measured for Piedmont itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPiedmont runs about 244 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
MeasuredPiedmont 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 Piedmont is in
Piedmont sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Piedmont's own centroid rather than borrowed from Calhoun County.
What Grows in Piedmont
Every plant below cleared Piedmont's own zone 8a and its 244-day season. Each card opens that plant's Alabama profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Piedmont?
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 15; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 15 (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. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
What's on the federal record near Piedmont
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Piedmont. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CITY OF PIEDMONTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- PIEDMONT MAIN - 11271Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- RACEWAY SERVICE STATION #796Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- WAYNE MUSSELMANUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- SEABOARD SYSTEM RAILROADUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- RACEWAY #985Underground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- PHILLIPS 66 CO #011247Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- PIEDMONT TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- FORD BODY SHOPBrownfields · 2000 ft
- CURTIS AMBERSONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- YOUNG OIL #1Underground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- GENE GOWEN BODY SHOP INCBrownfields · 2200 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Piedmont'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 Piedmont.
Total Sites
96
within ~10 miles of Piedmont
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Piedmont
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Piedmont
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Piedmont, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Piedmont — CAFO (14 sites) and PFAS (3 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.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Piedmont
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 Piedmont average
Your land is one point inside Piedmont
Everything above resolves to Piedmont as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 6K 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 Piedmont Average
Piedmont Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Piedmont
- ●One soil character for all of Piedmont
- ●Frost dates read at Piedmont's scale: Mar 15 to Nov 14
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Piedmont's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Piedmont
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Piedmont, Alabama — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Piedmont averages can't show:
We read public map data around Piedmont — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Piedmont average
How we know this about Piedmont
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 Piedmont’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 Piedmont
When does frost risk typically end in Piedmont?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Piedmont typically lands around Mar 15, 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 5.
When is the first frost in Piedmont?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Piedmont 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 244 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Piedmont?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Piedmont sees about 244 frost-free days — roughly Mar 15 through Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 5 to Oct 31, about 209 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Piedmont?
The federal record around Piedmont is a meaningful one — 96 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (50), 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 Piedmont?
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 Piedmont's scale — its 8a band and its 244-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Piedmont'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 Piedmont’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Piedmont's own scale — its own ~244-day season between 28°F freezes, the 6,288 acres it covers and 96 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Piedmont's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Piedmont's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 15 and Nov 14 and the ~244-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 96 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Piedmont, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Piedmont's boundary and the 6,288 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~244-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Piedmont's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Piedmont's 6,288 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Calhoun County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Calhoun 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 Calhoun County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Piedmont's 6,288 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Piedmont you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 6,288 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 Piedmont-wide figureread your own land →
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