Bulls Gap, Tennessee, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Bulls Gap, 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 Bulls Gap 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 Bulls Gap — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Bulls Gap — the short answer
Bulls Gap, Tennessee: USDA zone 7b, about 224 days between hard freezes, across 780 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~224
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 780 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 Bulls Gap's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bulls Gap's 224-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Bulls Gap
Each reading below is measured for Bulls Gap itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBulls Gap 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
MeasuredBulls Gap 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 Bulls Gap is in
Bulls Gap sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Bulls Gap's own centroid rather than borrowed from Hawkins County.
What Grows in Bulls Gap
Every plant below cleared Bulls Gap's own zone 7b and its 224-day season. Each card opens that plant's Tennessee profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Bulls Gap?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 5 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Bulls Gap
Survey cells within 31 miles of Bulls Gap checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 52 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Bulls Gap
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Bulls Gap. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Goshen Valley GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- James and Hugh GoanUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- Bulls Gap Market and HardwareUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- J And SupplyUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Walker Service StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- By-Lo Market No.2Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- U S FENCE INCORPORATED TREATING DIVISIONBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- U S FENCE INCORPORATED TREATING DIVISIONToxics Release Inventory · 0.7 mi
- BARRETTE OUTDOOR LIVING, INC.Toxics Release Inventory · 0.9 mi
- Bull Gaps Gen Store*Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- Lee's Food Mart #114Underground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- Lee's Food Mart #123Underground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bulls Gap'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 Bulls Gap.
Total Sites
197
within ~10 miles of Bulls Gap
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Bulls Gap
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Bulls Gap
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bulls Gap, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Bulls Gap — Toxics Release Inventory (33 sites) and PFAS (4 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Bulls Gap
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 Bulls Gap average
Your land is one point inside Bulls Gap
Everything above resolves to Bulls Gap as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 780 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 Bulls Gap Average
Bulls Gap Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Bulls Gap
- ●One soil character for all of Bulls Gap
- ●Frost dates read at Bulls Gap's scale: Mar 26 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bulls Gap's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Bulls Gap
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bulls Gap, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bulls Gap averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bulls Gap — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bulls Gap average
How we know this about Bulls Gap
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 Bulls Gap’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 Bulls Gap
When does frost risk typically end in Bulls Gap?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bulls Gap typically lands around Mar 26, 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 16.
When is the first frost in Bulls Gap?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Bulls Gap typically arrives around Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 22, so the watching starts about Oct 6 — about 224 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Bulls Gap?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bulls Gap sees about 224 frost-free days — roughly Mar 26 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 16 to Oct 22, about 189 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bulls Gap?
The federal record around Bulls Gap is a meaningful one — 197 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (116), 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 Bulls Gap?
From about Oct 6 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 5 (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 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Bulls Gap's scale — its 7b band and its 224-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bulls Gap'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 Bulls Gap’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Bulls Gap's own scale — its own ~224-day season between 28°F freezes, the 780 acres it covers and 197 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bulls Gap's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bulls Gap's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 26 and Nov 5 and the ~224-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 197 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Bulls Gap, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Bulls Gap's boundary and the 780 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~224-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Bulls Gap's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Bulls Gap 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 Bulls Gap's 780 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Hawkins County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Hawkins 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 Hawkins County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bulls Gap's 780 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Bulls Gap you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 780 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 Bulls Gap-wide figureread your own land →
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