Chattanooga, Tennessee, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Growers here do well with cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Chattanooga, 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 Chattanooga 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 Chattanooga — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Chattanooga — the short answer
Chattanooga, Tennessee: USDA zone 8a, about 255 days between hard freezes, across 91K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 13
- 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
- ~255
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 91K 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 Chattanooga's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Chattanooga's 255-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Chattanooga
Each reading below is measured for Chattanooga itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredChattanooga runs about 255 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
MeasuredChattanooga 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 Chattanooga is in
Chattanooga sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Chattanooga's own centroid rather than borrowed from Hamilton County.
What Grows in Chattanooga
Every plant below cleared Chattanooga's own zone 8a and its 255-day season. Each card opens that plant's Tennessee profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Chattanooga?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 13 (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. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Chattanooga
Survey cells within 31 miles of Chattanooga checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 95 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Chattanooga
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Chattanooga. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- NoneUnderground Storage Tanks · 150 ft
- SPECTRA, INC.Brownfields · 1300 ft
- United Parcel ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- Golden Gallon #4Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- Debutts Yard/norfolk Soutern R.rUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- Mac Oil CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- Schrader Helton Bowman And SplawnUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- FABRIC FINISHERS INCToxics Release Inventory · 1800 ft
- BROWNE LABORATORIESBrownfields · 2500 ft
- C And J Tennessee IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- Chattanooga Trnsfr And Sto CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- Williwear Hosiery Mills IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Chattanooga'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 Chattanooga.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Chattanooga
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Chattanooga
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Chattanooga, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Chattanooga — Toxics Release Inventory (146 sites) and Superfund (28 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.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Chattanooga
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 Chattanooga average
Your land is one point inside Chattanooga
Everything above resolves to Chattanooga as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 91K 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 Chattanooga Average
Chattanooga Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Chattanooga
- ●One soil character for all of Chattanooga
- ●Frost dates read at Chattanooga's scale: Mar 13 to Nov 23
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Chattanooga's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Chattanooga
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Chattanooga, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Chattanooga averages can't show:
We read public map data around Chattanooga — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Chattanooga average
How we know this about Chattanooga
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 Chattanooga’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 Chattanooga
When does frost risk typically end in Chattanooga?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Chattanooga typically lands around Mar 13, 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 3.
When is the first frost in Chattanooga?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Chattanooga 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 255 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Chattanooga?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Chattanooga sees about 255 frost-free days — roughly Mar 13 through Nov 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 3 to Nov 9, about 220 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Chattanooga?
The federal record around Chattanooga runs heavier than most — 1,546 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,063), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Chattanooga?
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 Chattanooga's scale — its 8a band and its 255-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Chattanooga'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 Chattanooga’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Chattanooga's own scale — its own ~255-day season between 28°F freezes, the 91,105 acres it covers and 1,546 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Chattanooga's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Chattanooga's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 13 and Nov 23 and the ~255-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,546 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Chattanooga, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Chattanooga's boundary and the 91,105 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~255-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Chattanooga's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Chattanooga 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 Chattanooga's 91,105 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Hamilton County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Hamilton 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 Hamilton County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Chattanooga's 91,105 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Chattanooga you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 91,105 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 Chattanooga-wide figureread your own land →
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