Auburntown, Tennessee, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Growers here do well with cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Auburntown, 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 Auburntown 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 Auburntown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Auburntown — the short answer
Auburntown, Tennessee: USDA zone 7b, about 221 days between hard freezes, across 370 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~221
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 370 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 Auburntown's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Auburntown's 221-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Auburntown
Each reading below is measured for Auburntown itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredAuburntown runs about 221 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
MeasuredAuburntown 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 Auburntown is in
Auburntown sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Auburntown's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cannon County.
What Grows in Auburntown
Every plant below cleared Auburntown's own zone 7b and its 221-day season. Each card opens that plant's Tennessee profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Auburntown?
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 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 4 — 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 Auburntown
Spotted lanternfly documented 28 miles from Auburntown, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Auburntown
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Auburntown. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Eastway MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- Jerry's MobilUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- Campbells GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- Dutton's MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Auburntown TexacoUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Auburntown General StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Robinson ProspectMining · 4.5 mi
- Knight MineMining · 4.5 mi
- Rogers Group IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
- Taylors GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.7 mi
- Medling ProspectMining · 4.7 mi
- MedlingMining · 5.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Auburntown'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 Auburntown.
Total Sites
99
within ~10 miles of Auburntown
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Auburntown
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Auburntown
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Auburntown, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Auburntown — PFAS (3 sites) and Mining (19 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.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Auburntown
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 Auburntown average
Your land is one point inside Auburntown
Everything above resolves to Auburntown as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 370 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 Auburntown Average
Auburntown Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Auburntown
- ●One soil character for all of Auburntown
- ●Frost dates read at Auburntown's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Auburntown's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Auburntown
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Auburntown, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Auburntown averages can't show:
We read public map data around Auburntown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Auburntown average
How we know this about Auburntown
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 Auburntown’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 Auburntown
When does frost risk typically end in Auburntown?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Auburntown typically lands around Mar 28, 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 18.
When is the first frost in Auburntown?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Auburntown typically arrives around Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 21, so the watching starts about Oct 5 — about 221 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Auburntown?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Auburntown sees about 221 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Oct 21, about 186 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Auburntown?
The federal record around Auburntown is a meaningful one — 99 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (57), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Auburntown?
From about Oct 5 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 4 (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 4. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Auburntown's scale — its 7b band and its 221-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Auburntown'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 Auburntown’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Auburntown's own scale — its own ~221-day season between 28°F freezes, the 370 acres it covers and 99 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Auburntown's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Auburntown's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 4 and the ~221-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 99 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Auburntown, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Auburntown's boundary and the 370 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~221-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Auburntown's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Auburntownlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Auburntown's 370 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cannon County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cannon 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 Cannon County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Auburntown's 370 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Auburntown you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 370 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Auburntown-wide figureread your own land →
More in Tennessee
Wider growing context
What grows across TennesseeAuburntown sits outside our named growing regions, so Tennessee as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides