Cosby, Tennessee, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
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 Cosby, 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 Cosby 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 Cosby — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Cosby — the short answer
Cosby, Tennessee: USDA zone 7b, about 214 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~214
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 4K 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 Cosby's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cosby's 214-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cosby
Each reading below is measured for Cosby itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCosby runs about 214 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
MeasuredCosby 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 Cosby is in
Cosby sits in the Blue Ridge — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Cosby's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cocke County.
What Grows in Cosby
Every plant below cleared Cosby's own zone 7b and its 214-day season. Each card opens that plant's Tennessee profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Cosby?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 1 — 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 Cosby
Survey cells within 31 miles of Cosby checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 40 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Cosby
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cosby. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Webb's MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Smokey Mountain Elementary SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- Garver GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- DJ's Market and DeliUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- Billy's StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- Park Entrance GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- Donna Jo's MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- Cosby AmocoUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- Jack's MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- Chestnut Mtn MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- Cosby High SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- Fowler GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cosby'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 Cosby.
Total Sites
53
within ~10 miles of Cosby
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
2 mining sites (prospects, none worked)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cosby
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cosby
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cosby, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 48 sites within ~10 miles of Cosby. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Cosby
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 Cosby average
Your land is one point inside Cosby
Everything above resolves to Cosby as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 Cosby Average
Cosby Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Cosby
- ●One soil character for all of Cosby
- ●Frost dates read at Cosby's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cosby's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cosby
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cosby, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cosby averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cosby — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cosby average
How we know this about Cosby
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 Cosby’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 Cosby
When does frost risk typically end in Cosby?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cosby typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
When is the first frost in Cosby?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cosby typically arrives around Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 18, so the watching starts about Oct 2 — about 214 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Cosby?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cosby sees about 214 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 18, about 179 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cosby?
The federal record around Cosby shows 53 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (48), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Cosby?
From about Oct 2 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 1 (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 1. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Cosby's scale — its 7b band and its 214-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cosby'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 Cosby’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Cosby's own scale — its own ~214-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,541 acres it covers and 53 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cosby's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cosby's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 1 and the ~214-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 53 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cosby, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cosby's boundary and the 3,541 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~214-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Cosby's own centroid, the Blue RidgeUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Cosby 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 Cosby's 3,541 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cocke County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cocke 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 Cocke County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Cosby's 3,541 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cosby you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,541 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Cosby-wide figureread your own land →