Cunningham, Kentucky, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, 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 Cunningham, 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 Cunningham 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 Cunningham — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Cunningham — the short answer
Cunningham, Kentucky: USDA zone 7a, about 236 days between hard freezes, across 671 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~236
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 671 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 7a is Cunningham's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cunningham's 236-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cunningham
Each reading below is measured for Cunningham itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCunningham runs about 236 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
MeasuredCunningham sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Cunningham is in
Cunningham sits in the Mississippi Valley Loess Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Cunningham's own centroid rather than borrowed from Carlisle County.
What Grows in Cunningham
Every plant below cleared Cunningham's own zone 7a and its 236-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kentucky profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Cunningham?
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 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 21 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 12 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
What's on the federal record near Cunningham
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cunningham. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- J4A0063Nitrate · 1800 ft
- Cunningham HardwareUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- J4A0069Nitrate · 1900 ft
- J4A0070Nitrate · 2300 ft
- Duffs MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- J4B0037Nitrate · 1.5 mi
- J4A0094Nitrate · 1.9 mi
- J4B0003Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- J4A0046Nitrate · 2.7 mi
- Old Hickory Clay CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- J4B0070Nitrate · 2.8 mi
- Crossroads MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cunningham'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 Cunningham.
Total Sites
190
within ~10 miles of Cunningham
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
140 nitrate monitoring sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cunningham
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cunningham
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cunningham, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 140 sites within ~10 miles of Cunningham. 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 Cunningham
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 Cunningham average
Your land is one point inside Cunningham
Everything above resolves to Cunningham as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 671 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 Cunningham Average
Cunningham Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Cunningham
- ●One soil character for all of Cunningham
- ●Frost dates read at Cunningham's scale: Mar 21 to Nov 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cunningham's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cunningham
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cunningham, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cunningham averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cunningham — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cunningham average
How we know this about Cunningham
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 Cunningham’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 Cunningham
When does frost risk typically end in Cunningham?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cunningham typically lands around Mar 21, 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 11.
When is the first frost in Cunningham?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cunningham typically arrives around Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 29, so the watching starts about Oct 13 — about 236 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Cunningham?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cunningham sees about 236 frost-free days — roughly Mar 21 through Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 11 to Oct 29, about 201 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cunningham?
The federal record around Cunningham shows 190 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (140), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.3 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 Cunningham?
From about Oct 13 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 12 (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 12. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Cunningham's scale — its 7a band and its 236-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cunningham'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 Cunningham’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Cunningham's own scale — its own ~236-day season between 28°F freezes, the 671 acres it covers and 190 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cunningham's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cunningham's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 21 and Nov 12 and the ~236-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 190 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cunningham, the closest Nitrate record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cunningham's boundary and the 671 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~236-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Cunningham's own centroid, the Mississippi Valley Loess PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Cunningham's 671 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Carlisle County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Carlisle County
- The growing challenges every Kentucky grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Kentucky
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Carlisle County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Cunningham's 671 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cunningham you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 671 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate 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 Cunningham-wide figureread your own land →