Nashville, Arkansas, 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.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Nashville, 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 Nashville 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 Nashville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Nashville — the short answer
Nashville, Arkansas: USDA zone 8a, about 250 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~250
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 4K 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 Nashville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Nashville's 250-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Nashville
Each reading below is measured for Nashville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNashville runs about 250 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
MeasuredNashville 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 Nashville is in
Nashville sits in the South Central Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Nashville's own centroid rather than borrowed from Howard County.
What Grows in Nashville
Every plant below cleared Nashville's own zone 8a and its 250-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arkansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Nashville?
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 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 11 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 16 — 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 Nashville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Nashville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PRO LANDSCAPEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- SOUTHWESTERN BELL TELEPHONEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- MASEY PULPWOOD COMPANY, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- CASSADY BROILER COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- SARATOGA LANDINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- SOUTHWEST ARK ELECT COOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- COUCH GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- BRAZILSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- GENE'S EXXONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- E-Z MART #207 (FORMERLY)Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- NEELEYSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- E-Z MART #001Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Nashville'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 Nashville.
Total Sites
229
within ~10 miles of Nashville
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Nashville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Nashville
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Nashville, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 130 sites within ~10 miles of Nashville. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Nashville
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 Nashville average
Your land is one point inside Nashville
Everything above resolves to Nashville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 Nashville Average
Nashville Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Nashville
- ●One soil character for all of Nashville
- ●Frost dates read at Nashville's scale: Mar 11 to Nov 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Nashville's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Nashville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Nashville, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Nashville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Nashville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Nashville average
How we know this about Nashville
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 Nashville’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 Nashville
When does frost risk typically end in Nashville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Nashville typically lands around Mar 11, 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 1.
When is the first frost in Nashville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Nashville typically arrives around Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 2, so the watching starts about Oct 17 — about 250 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Nashville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Nashville sees about 250 frost-free days — roughly Mar 11 through Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 1 to Nov 2, about 215 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Nashville?
The federal record around Nashville is a meaningful one — 229 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (130), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Nashville?
From about Oct 17 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 16 (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 16. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Nashville's scale — its 8a band and its 250-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Nashville'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 Nashville’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Nashville's own scale — its own ~250-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,503 acres it covers and 229 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Nashville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Nashville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 11 and Nov 16 and the ~250-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 229 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Nashville, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Nashville's boundary and the 3,503 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~250-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Nashville's own centroid, the South Central PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Nashville's 3,503 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Howard County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Howard County
- The growing challenges every Arkansas grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Arkansas
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Howard County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Nashville's 3,503 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Nashville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,503 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 Nashville-wide figureread your own land →
More in Arkansas
Growing region
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