Coats, North Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
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 Coats, 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 Coats 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 Coats — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Coats — the short answer
Coats, North Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 256 days between hard freezes, across 988 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~256
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 988 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 Coats's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Coats's 256-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Coats
Each reading below is measured for Coats itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCoats runs about 256 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
MeasuredCoats 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 Coats is in
Coats sits in the Southeastern Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Coats's own centroid rather than borrowed from Harnett County.
What Grows in Coats
Every plant below cleared Coats's own zone 8a and its 256-day season. Each card opens that plant's North Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Coats?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 12 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 23 — 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.
Documented around Coats
Survey cells within 31 miles of Coats checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 31 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Coats
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Coats. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- RDHT INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- E-Z SHOP 17Underground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- POWELL'S GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- FORMERLY LAMM & GULF SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- REGISTER OIL COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- HR-012 COATS MUNNitrate · 1100 ft
- HR-013 COATS MUNNitrate · 1100 ft
- COATS MOTOR CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- TOWN OF COATSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- SONNYS MINI MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- T-MART 10Underground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- SPEEDWAY #7932Underground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Coats'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 Coats.
Total Sites
347
within ~10 miles of Coats
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Coats
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Coats
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Coats, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 237 sites within ~10 miles of Coats. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Coats
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 Coats average
Your land is one point inside Coats
Everything above resolves to Coats as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 988 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 Coats Average
Coats Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Coats
- ●One soil character for all of Coats
- ●Frost dates read at Coats's scale: Mar 12 to Nov 23
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Coats's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Coats
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Coats, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Coats averages can't show:
We read public map data around Coats — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Coats average
How we know this about Coats
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 Coats’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 Coats
When does frost risk typically end in Coats?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Coats typically lands around Mar 12, 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 2.
When is the first frost in Coats?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Coats typically arrives around Nov 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 9, so the watching starts about Oct 24 — about 256 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Coats?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Coats sees about 256 frost-free days — roughly Mar 12 through Nov 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 2 to Nov 9, about 221 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Coats?
The federal record around Coats is a meaningful one — 347 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (237), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Coats?
From about Oct 24 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 23 (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 23. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Coats's scale — its 8a band and its 256-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Coats'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 Coats’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Coats's own scale — its own ~256-day season between 28°F freezes, the 988 acres it covers and 347 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Coats's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Coats's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 12 and Nov 23 and the ~256-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 347 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Coats, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Coats's boundary and the 988 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~256-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Coats's own centroid, the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Coats 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 Coats's 988 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Harnett County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Harnett County
- The growing challenges every North Carolina grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom North Carolina
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Harnett County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Coats's 988 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Coats you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 988 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Coats-wide figureread your own land →
More in North Carolina
Growing region
Nearby growing guides