Tumbling Shoals, Arkansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Tumbling Shoals, 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 Tumbling Shoals 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 Tumbling Shoals — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Tumbling Shoals — the short answer
Tumbling Shoals, Arkansas: USDA zone 7b, about 249 days between hard freezes, across 6K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~249
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town 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 7b is Tumbling Shoals's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Tumbling Shoals's 249-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Tumbling Shoals
Each reading below is measured for Tumbling Shoals itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredTumbling Shoals runs about 249 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
MeasuredTumbling Shoals 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 Tumbling Shoals is in
Tumbling Shoals sits in the Boston Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Tumbling Shoals's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Cleburne County is mostly Arkansas Valley. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Tumbling Shoals
Every plant below cleared Tumbling Shoals's own zone 7b and its 249-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arkansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Tumbling Shoals?
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 17; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 17 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 21 — 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 Tumbling Shoals
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Tumbling Shoals. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- TUMBLING SHOALS WATER ASSOCPFAS · 25 ft
- UNITED PLASTICS TECHNOLOGY,INCBrownfields · 1.2 mi
- SENTINEL INDUSTRIES INCToxics Release Inventory · 1.2 mi
- DALE & DESSIE ONE STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- RED RIVER TROUT DOCK, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- DAM SITE MARINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- 10N10W12ABB1Nitrate · 2.8 mi
- HEBER SPRINGS AREA HEADQUARTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- BIRDSONG GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- LOGAN'S GENERAL STORE LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- ST. JEAN INDUSTRIESBrownfields · 3.1 mi
- SAINT JEAN INDUSTRIES, INC.Toxics Release Inventory · 3.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Tumbling Shoals'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 Tumbling Shoals.
Total Sites
116
within ~10 miles of Tumbling Shoals
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
10 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Tumbling Shoals
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Tumbling Shoals
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Tumbling Shoals, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Tumbling Shoals — PFAS (3 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (10 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Tumbling Shoals
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 Tumbling Shoals average
Your land is one point inside Tumbling Shoals
Everything above resolves to Tumbling Shoals 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 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 Tumbling Shoals Average
Tumbling Shoals Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Tumbling Shoals
- ●One soil character for all of Tumbling Shoals
- ●Frost dates read at Tumbling Shoals's scale: Mar 17 to Nov 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Tumbling Shoals's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Tumbling Shoals
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Tumbling Shoals, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Tumbling Shoals averages can't show:
We read public map data around Tumbling Shoals — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Tumbling Shoals average
How we know this about Tumbling Shoals
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 Tumbling Shoals’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 Tumbling Shoals
When does frost risk typically end in Tumbling Shoals?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Tumbling Shoals typically lands around Mar 17, 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 7.
When is the first frost in Tumbling Shoals?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Tumbling Shoals typically arrives around Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 7, so the watching starts about Oct 22 — about 249 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Tumbling Shoals?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Tumbling Shoals sees about 249 frost-free days — roughly Mar 17 through Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 7 to Nov 7, about 214 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Tumbling Shoals?
The federal record around Tumbling Shoals shows 116 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (78), the nearest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile 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 Tumbling Shoals?
From about Oct 22 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 21 (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 21. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Tumbling Shoals's scale — its 7b band and its 249-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Tumbling Shoals'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 Tumbling Shoals’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Tumbling Shoals's own scale — its own ~249-day season between 28°F freezes, the 6,479 acres it covers and 116 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Tumbling Shoals's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Tumbling Shoals's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 17 and Nov 21 and the ~249-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 116 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Tumbling Shoals, the closest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Tumbling Shoals's boundary and the 6,479 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~249-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Tumbling Shoals sits in the Boston Mountains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Tumbling Shoals's 6,479 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cleburne County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cleburne 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 Cleburne County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Tumbling Shoals's 6,479 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Tumbling Shoals you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 6,479 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile 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 Tumbling Shoals-wide figureread your own land →
More in Arkansas
Wider growing context
What grows across ArkansasTumbling Shoals sits outside our named growing regions, so Arkansas as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides