Hardeman County, in 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.
Hardeman 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
Hardeman County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Hardeman 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 Hardeman County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Hardeman County — the short answer
Hardeman County, Tennessee: USDA zone 7b, about 240 days between hard freezes, across 427K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~240
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 427K 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 Hardeman County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Hardeman County's 240-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Hardeman County
Across a year, Hardeman County accumulates about 4,560 growing degree days above 50°F, about 447 more than the middle Tennessee county — ahead of 89 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 1,825 hours below 45°F, 234 fewer 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 Hardeman County
Across Hardeman County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Smithdale, Lexington, and Luverne are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.8–5.3, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
25%
Hydric soils
13%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Hardeman County
The USDA soil survey maps 60% of Hardeman County as well drained — but another 35% drains differently: 16% somewhat poorly drained, 14% moderately well drained.
Smithdale is the most extensive named soil at 28% of mapped acres, then Lexington (15%) and Luverne (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 Hardeman County
Each reading below is measured for Hardeman 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 Hardeman County are well drained, in hydrologic group B — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Hardeman County runs about pH 4.8–5.3, 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
MeasuredHardeman County runs about 240 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
MeasuredHardeman 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 Hardeman County is in
Hardeman County sits in the Southeastern Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Hardeman County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Hardeman County's own USDA zone 7b and its own 240-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 Hardeman County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 17; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 17 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 12 — 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 Hardeman County
- Japanese beetle1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Hardeman County
USGS estimates 95,302 lb of Glyphosate on Hardeman County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (22,552 lb) and Dicamba (18,079 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 Hardeman County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Hardeman County — 214 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Hardeman 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 Hardeman County
Closest first, across Hardeman County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ROGER HENSON TRUCKING LLCBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- Mayfield GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- BOLIVAR WATER SYSTEMPFAS · 1.8 mi
- ARMIRA CORPORATIONSuperfund · 2.1 mi
- HR:P-025Nitrate · 2.2 mi
- Skibba GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- Bolivar Electric DepartmentUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- Tennysons Quick StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- Nelms ChevroletUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- Hardeman County BankUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- Farmers SupplyUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- South Central-blvrtnmaUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Hardeman 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 Hardeman County.
Sources Checked
across Hardeman County
Severity Distribution
across Hardeman County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Hardeman County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 139 sites across Hardeman County. 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 Hardeman 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 Hardeman County average
Your land is one point inside Hardeman County
Everything above resolves to Hardeman County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 427K 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 Hardeman County Average
Hardeman County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Hardeman County
- ●One soil character for all of Hardeman County
- ●Frost dates read at Hardeman County's scale: Mar 17 to Nov 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Hardeman County's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Hardeman County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Hardeman County, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Hardeman County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Hardeman County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hardeman County average
How we know this about Hardeman 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 Hardeman County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Hardeman County
When does frost risk typically end in Hardeman County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Hardeman County typically lands around Mar 17, 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 7.
How long is the growing season in Hardeman County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Hardeman County sees about 240 frost-free days — roughly Mar 17 through Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 7 to Oct 29, about 205 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Hardeman County?
The federal record around Hardeman County is a meaningful one — 214 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (139), the nearest Brownfields record about 1.6 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.
Everything above is measured at Hardeman County's scale — its 7b band and its 240-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Hardeman 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 Hardeman County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Hardeman County's own scale — its own ~240-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 214 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Hardeman County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Hardeman County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~240-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Hardeman CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 214 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 1.6 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Hardeman County's boundary and the 427,371 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~240-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Hardeman County sitting wholly inside the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Hardeman County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Hardeman 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 Hardeman County — the ~240 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 Hardeman County's 427,371 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 214 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 Hardeman Countyread your own land →