Adams, Tennessee, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, prickly pear, 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 Adams, 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 Adams 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 Adams — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Adams — the short answer
Adams, Tennessee: USDA zone 7b, about 231 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~231
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 2K 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 Adams's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Adams's 231-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Adams
Each reading below is measured for Adams itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredAdams runs about 231 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
MeasuredAdams 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 Adams is in
Adams sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Adams's own centroid rather than borrowed from Robertson County.
What Grows in Adams
Every plant below cleared Adams's own zone 7b and its 231-day season. Each card opens that plant's Tennessee profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Adams?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 25 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 11 — 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 Adams
Survey cells within 31 miles of Adams checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 37 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Adams
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Adams. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Adkins Service StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 250 ft
- Adams MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- Port Royal General StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- Bourne BrosUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- Davidson Bros (farm)Underground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- Billy's Bp /cedar Hill BpUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- Herndon's MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.4 mi
- WEST ROBERTSON WATER AUTHORITYPFAS · 4.8 mi
- A And A RepairUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.2 mi
- Sanders GulfUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.2 mi
- Rb:J-001Nitrate · 5.2 mi
- KEYSBURG IND DUMPSuperfund · 5.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Adams'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 Adams.
Total Sites
89
within ~10 miles of Adams
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Adams
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Adams
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Adams, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Adams — Toxics Release Inventory (8 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (67 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Adams
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 Adams average
Your land is one point inside Adams
Everything above resolves to Adams as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Adams Average
Adams Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Adams
- ●One soil character for all of Adams
- ●Frost dates read at Adams's scale: Mar 25 to Nov 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Adams's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Adams
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Adams, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Adams averages can't show:
We read public map data around Adams — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Adams average
How we know this about Adams
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 Adams’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 Adams
When does frost risk typically end in Adams?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Adams typically lands around Mar 25, 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 15.
When is the first frost in Adams?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Adams typically arrives around Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 28, so the watching starts about Oct 12 — about 231 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Adams?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Adams sees about 231 frost-free days — roughly Mar 25 through Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 15 to Oct 28, about 196 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Adams?
The federal record around Adams is a meaningful one — 89 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (67), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Adams?
From about Oct 12 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 11 (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 11. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Adams's scale — its 7b band and its 231-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Adams'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 Adams’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Adams's own scale — its own ~231-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,530 acres it covers and 89 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Adams's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Adams's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 25 and Nov 11 and the ~231-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 89 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Adams, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Adams's boundary and the 1,530 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~231-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Adams's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Adams 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 Adams's 1,530 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Robertson County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Robertson County
- The growing challenges every Tennessee grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Tennessee
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Robertson County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Adams's 1,530 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Adams you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,530 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Adams-wide figureread your own land →
More in Tennessee
Wider growing context
What grows across TennesseeAdams sits outside our named growing regions, so Tennessee as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides