Coker Creek, Tennessee, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Expect cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Coker Creek, 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 Coker Creek 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 Coker Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Coker Creek — the short answer
Coker Creek, Tennessee: USDA zone 7b, about 232 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~232
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 Coker Creek's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Coker Creek's 232-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Coker Creek
Each reading below is measured for Coker Creek itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCoker Creek runs about 232 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
MeasuredCoker Creek 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 Coker Creek is in
Coker Creek sits in the Blue Ridge — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Coker Creek's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Monroe County is mostly Ridge and Valley. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Coker Creek
Every plant below cleared Coker Creek's own zone 7b and its 232-day season. Each card opens that plant's Tennessee profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Coker Creek?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 22; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 22 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 9 — 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 Coker Creek
Survey cells within 31 miles of Coker Creek checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 76 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Coker Creek
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Coker Creek. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Mr:F-009Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- Williams Mountain MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- Frerichs GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- Goat Knob ProspectMining · 2.6 mi
- Lower Peck AditMining · 3.0 mi
- Peck ProspectMining · 3.1 mi
- Sixmile Creek AditMining · 3.2 mi
- CVS PHARMACY #7685Brownfields · 3.5 mi
- Macks ExxonUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- Tellico River Hardwood, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- Hilltop GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- Holder GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Coker Creek'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 Coker Creek.
Total Sites
54
within ~10 miles of Coker Creek
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Coker Creek
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Coker Creek
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Coker Creek, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Coker Creek — Mining (10 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (38 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Coker Creek
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 Coker Creek average
Your land is one point inside Coker Creek
Everything above resolves to Coker Creek as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Coker Creek Average
Coker Creek Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Coker Creek
- ●One soil character for all of Coker Creek
- ●Frost dates read at Coker Creek's scale: Mar 22 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Coker Creek's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Coker Creek
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Coker Creek, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Coker Creek averages can't show:
We read public map data around Coker Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Coker Creek average
How we know this about Coker Creek
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 Coker Creek’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 Coker Creek
When does frost risk typically end in Coker Creek?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Coker Creek typically lands around Mar 22, 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 12.
When is the first frost in Coker Creek?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Coker Creek typically arrives around Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 26, so the watching starts about Oct 10 — about 232 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Coker Creek?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Coker Creek sees about 232 frost-free days — roughly Mar 22 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 12 to Oct 26, about 197 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Coker Creek?
The federal record around Coker Creek is a meaningful one — 54 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (38), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.6 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 Coker Creek?
From about Oct 10 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 9 (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 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Coker Creek's scale — its 7b band and its 232-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Coker Creek'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 Coker Creek’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Coker Creek's own scale — its own ~232-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,227 acres it covers and 54 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Coker Creek's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Coker Creek's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 22 and Nov 9 and the ~232-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 54 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Coker Creek, the closest Nitrate record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Coker Creek's boundary and the 1,227 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~232-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Coker Creek sits in the Blue Ridge — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Coker Creek 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 Coker Creek's 1,227 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Monroe County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Monroe 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 Monroe County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Coker Creek's 1,227 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Coker Creek you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,227 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.6 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 Coker Creek-wide figureread your own land →
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