Sand Rock, Alabama, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
On paper, cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Sand Rock, 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 Sand Rock 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 Sand Rock — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Sand Rock — the short answer
Sand Rock, Alabama: USDA zone 8a, about 241 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 18
- 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
- ~241
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 Sand Rock's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Sand Rock's 241-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Sand Rock
Each reading below is measured for Sand Rock itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSand Rock runs about 241 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
MeasuredSand Rock 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 Sand Rock is in
Sand Rock sits in the Southwestern Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Sand Rock's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Cherokee County is mostly Ridge and Valley. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Sand Rock
Every plant below cleared Sand Rock's own zone 8a and its 241-day season. Each card opens that plant's Alabama profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Sand Rock?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 18; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 18 (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 Sand Rock
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Sand Rock. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BIG EYE FARMCAFO · 2100 ft
- SAND ROCK VILLAGE CITGOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Well (H-10)SANDROCK HIGH SCHOOL Cherokee CntyNitrate · 0.5 mi
- SAND ROCK HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- J T BOBO FARM, LLCCAFO · 0.8 mi
- BLYTHE DRUG LABSuperfund · 0.8 mi
- LAWSON GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- LEESBURG TELEPHONE EXCHANGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- BARNETTS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- YELLOW CREEK FARMCAFO · 1.7 mi
- GAULT'S COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- PEMCOToxics Release Inventory · 2.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Sand Rock'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 Sand Rock.
Total Sites
135
within ~10 miles of Sand Rock
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Sand Rock
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Sand Rock
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Sand Rock, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Sand Rock — CAFO (26 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (83 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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 Sand Rock
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 Sand Rock average
Your land is one point inside Sand Rock
Everything above resolves to Sand Rock as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Sand Rock Average
Sand Rock Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Sand Rock
- ●One soil character for all of Sand Rock
- ●Frost dates read at Sand Rock's scale: Mar 18 to Nov 14
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Sand Rock's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Sand Rock
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Sand Rock, Alabama — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Sand Rock averages can't show:
We read public map data around Sand Rock — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Sand Rock average
How we know this about Sand Rock
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 Sand Rock’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 Sand Rock
When does frost risk typically end in Sand Rock?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Sand Rock typically lands around Mar 18, 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 8.
When is the first frost in Sand Rock?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Sand Rock 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 241 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Sand Rock?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Sand Rock sees about 241 frost-free days — roughly Mar 18 through Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 8 to Oct 31, about 206 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Sand Rock?
The federal record around Sand Rock is a meaningful one — 135 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (83), the nearest CAFO 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 Sand Rock?
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 Sand Rock's scale — its 8a band and its 241-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Sand Rock'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 Sand Rock’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Sand Rock's own scale — its own ~241-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,245 acres it covers and 135 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Sand Rock's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Sand Rock's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 18 and Nov 14 and the ~241-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 135 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Sand Rock, the closest CAFO record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Sand Rock's boundary and the 3,245 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~241-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Sand Rock sits in the Southwestern Appalachians — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Sand Rock's 3,245 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 Sand Rock's 3,245 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Sand Rock you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,245 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest CAFO 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 Sand Rock-wide figureread your own land →
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