Dyer County, in Tennessee, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Dyer County lies within the West Tennessee (Gulf Coastal Plain / Loess Plains) — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Dyer County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Dyer County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Dyer County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Dyer County — the short answer
Dyer County, Tennessee: USDA zone 7b, about 251 days between hard freezes, across 328K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~251
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 328K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 Dyer County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Dyer County's 251-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Dyer County
Across a year, Dyer County accumulates about 4,532 growing degree days above 50°F, about 419 more than the middle Tennessee county — ahead of 86 of Tennessee’s 95 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Winter banks about 2,073 hours below 45°F, 14 more than the Tennessee middle of 2,059. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Dyer County
Across Dyer County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Loring, Waverly, and Falaya are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.0–6.1, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
45%
Hydric soils
39%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Dyer County
The USDA soil survey maps 35% of Dyer County as poorly drained — but another 60% drains differently: 22% somewhat poorly drained, 21% moderately well drained.
Loring is the most extensive named soil at 12% of mapped acres, then Waverly (10%) and Falaya (9%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Dyer County
Each reading below is measured for Dyer County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Dyer County are poorly drained, in hydrologic group D — ground that sheds water slowly.
Beds can stay saturated for days after heavy rain, and the roots of most vegetables, berries, and fruit trees suffocate or rot in soil that never drains.
Raised beds or mounded rows lift roots above the wet zone; choose water-tolerant crops for the lowest spots.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Dyer County runs about pH 5.0–6.1, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredDyer County runs about 251 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
MeasuredDyer County 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 Dyer County is in
Dyer County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Mississippi Valley Loess Plains (59%) and Mississippi Alluvial Plain (42%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Dyer County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Dyer County's own USDA zone 7b and its own 251-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Tennessee profile.
Is it too late to plant in Dyer County?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 12 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 18 — 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.
What gets applied to farmland in Dyer County
USGS estimates 179,836 lb of Glyphosate on Dyer County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (78,960 lb) and Dicamba (73,859 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Dyer County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Dyer County — 280 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 20 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
There's a meaningful federal record across Dyer County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Dyer County
Closest first, across Dyer County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Robert M HurtUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- K.C. One StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- Edd TexacoUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- Village 66Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- Foodmart # 1Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- STATE GAZETTEBrownfields · 2600 ft
- Village ExxonUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Roberts-gibson IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Tn Army Nat GuardUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- CVS PHARMACY #10645Brownfields · 0.7 mi
- Service America CorpUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- Tiger Express no.1Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Dyer County'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 Dyer County.
Total Sites
280
across Dyer County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
20 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Dyer County
Severity Distribution
across Dyer County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Dyer County, two things run higher than the national average across Dyer County — PFAS (4 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (202 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Dyer County
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 Dyer County average
Your land is one point inside Dyer County
Everything above resolves to Dyer County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 328K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Dyer County Average
Dyer County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Dyer County
- ●One soil character for all of Dyer County
- ●Frost dates read at Dyer County's scale: Mar 12 to Nov 18
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Dyer County's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Dyer County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Dyer County, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Dyer County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Dyer County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Dyer County average
How we know this about Dyer County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Dyer County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Dyer County
When does frost risk typically end in Dyer County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Dyer County typically lands around Mar 12, 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 2.
How long is the growing season in Dyer County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Dyer County sees about 251 frost-free days — roughly Mar 12 through Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 2 to Nov 4, about 216 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Dyer County?
The federal record around Dyer County is a meaningful one — 280 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (202), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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.
Everything above is measured at Dyer County's scale — its 7b band and its 251-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Dyer County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Tennessee's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Dyer County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Dyer County's own scale — its own ~251-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 280 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Dyer County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Dyer County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~251-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Dyer CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 280 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Dyer County's boundary and the 327,904 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~251-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Dyer County spans, Mississippi Valley Loess Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Dyer County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Tennessee grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Tennessee
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Dyer County — the ~251 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Dyer County's 327,904 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 280 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Dyer Countyread your own land →