Fort Knox, Kentucky, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Fort Knox, 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 Fort Knox 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 Fort Knox — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Fort Knox — the short answer
Fort Knox, Kentucky: USDA zone 7a, about 224 days between hard freezes, across 13K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~224
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 13K 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 Fort Knox's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Fort Knox's 224-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Fort Knox
Each reading below is measured for Fort Knox itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFort Knox runs about 224 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
MeasuredFort Knox 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 Fort Knox is in
Fort Knox sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Fort Knox's own centroid rather than borrowed from Hardin County.
What Grows in Fort Knox
Every plant below cleared Fort Knox's own zone 7a and its 224-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kentucky profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Fort Knox?
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 27; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 27 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 6 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Fort Knox
Survey cells within 31 miles of Fort Knox checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 81 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Fort Knox
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Fort Knox. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- US ARMY GARRISON FORT KNOXBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- US ARMY GARRISON FORT KNOXToxics Release Inventory · 1.1 mi
- US ARMY GARRISON FORT KNOXSuperfund · 1.1 mi
- Hardin Co Ready Mix IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- TRI-COUNTY'S KNOX FORD LLCBrownfields · 2.0 mi
- Five Star #8710Underground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- K Mart 7211Underground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- Radcliff General TireUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- Nationwise Auto Parts Store 290Underground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- HARDIN CO. WATER DIST #1/FT. KNOXPFAS · 2.5 mi
- Knox Food MartUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- Atlas Used Cars IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Fort Knox'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 Fort Knox.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Fort Knox
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Fort Knox
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Fort Knox, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Fort Knox — Superfund (5 sites) and PFAS (3 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Fort Knox
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 Fort Knox average
Your land is one point inside Fort Knox
Everything above resolves to Fort Knox as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 13K 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 Fort Knox Average
Fort Knox Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Fort Knox
- ●One soil character for all of Fort Knox
- ●Frost dates read at Fort Knox's scale: Mar 27 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Fort Knox's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Fort Knox
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Fort Knox, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Fort Knox averages can't show:
We read public map data around Fort Knox — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Fort Knox average
How we know this about Fort Knox
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 Fort Knox’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 Fort Knox
When does frost risk typically end in Fort Knox?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Fort Knox typically lands around Mar 27, 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 17.
When is the first frost in Fort Knox?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Fort Knox typically arrives around Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 23, so the watching starts about Oct 7 — about 224 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Fort Knox?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Fort Knox sees about 224 frost-free days — roughly Mar 27 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 17 to Oct 23, about 189 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Fort Knox?
The federal record around Fort Knox is a meaningful one — 213 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (119), the nearest Brownfields record about 1.1 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 Fort Knox?
From about Oct 7 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 6 (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 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Fort Knox's scale — its 7a band and its 224-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Fort Knox'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 Fort Knox’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Fort Knox's own scale — its own ~224-day season between 28°F freezes, the 12,985 acres it covers and 213 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Fort Knox's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Fort Knox's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 27 and Nov 6 and the ~224-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 213 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Fort Knox, the closest Brownfields record about 1.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Fort Knox's boundary and the 12,985 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~224-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Fort Knox's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Fort Knox checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Fort Knox's 12,985 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Hardin County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Hardin 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 Hardin County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Fort Knox's 12,985 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Fort Knox you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 12,985 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 1.1 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 Fort Knox-wide figureread your own land →
More in Kentucky
Wider growing context
What grows across KentuckyFort Knox sits outside our named growing regions, so Kentucky as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides