Lake 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.
The conditions favor cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Lake County lies within the Mississippi Delta — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Lake County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Lake 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 Lake County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Lake County — the short answer
Lake County, Tennessee: USDA zone 7b, about 253 days between hard freezes, across 106K 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 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~253
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 106K 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 Lake County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lake County's 253-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Lake County
Across a year, Lake County accumulates about 4,450 growing degree days above 50°F, about 337 more than the middle Tennessee county — ahead of 81 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 2,265 hours below 45°F, 206 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 Lake County
Across Lake County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Commerce, Reelfoot, and Roellen are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally somewhat poorly drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.2–7.0, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C/D soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Somewhat poorly drained
Prime farmland
62%
Hydric soils
49%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Lake County
The USDA soil survey maps 32% of Lake County as somewhat poorly drained — but another 51% drains differently: 25% poorly drained, 17% moderately well drained.
Commerce is the most extensive named soil at 14% of mapped acres, then Reelfoot (14%) and Roellen (12%).
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 Lake County
Each reading below is measured for Lake 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 Lake County are somewhat poorly drained, in hydrologic group C/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 Lake County runs about pH 6.2–7.0, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredLake County runs about 253 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
MeasuredLake 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 Lake County is in
Lake County sits in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Lake County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Lake County's own USDA zone 7b and its own 253-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 Lake County?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. 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 20 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Lake County
- Japanese beetle2 documented records
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Lake County
USGS estimates 80,610 lb of Glyphosate on Lake County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Dicamba (36,272 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (29,676 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 Lake County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Lake County — 83 documented sites across 4 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Lake County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Lake County
Closest first, across Lake County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Lake County Lumber CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- Tennessee DotUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- Wynnburg GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- LK:E-030Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- Reelfoot Alfalfa Mill*Underground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- GEORGIA GULF CORPORATIONToxics Release Inventory · 2.1 mi
- Jimmie MooreUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- Roy MooreUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- Lake County High SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- Henry I Siegel CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- Eddlemon Farms IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- Tiptonville AmocoUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lake 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 Lake County.
Total Sites
83
across Lake County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Lake County
Severity Distribution
across Lake County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lake County, two things run higher than the national average across Lake County — Nitrate (26 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (53 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Lake 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 Lake County average
Your land is one point inside Lake County
Everything above resolves to Lake County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 106K 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 Lake County Average
Lake County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Lake County
- ●One soil character for all of Lake County
- ●Frost dates read at Lake County's scale: Mar 12 to Nov 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lake County's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Lake County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lake County, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lake County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lake County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lake County average
How we know this about Lake 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 Lake County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Lake County
When does frost risk typically end in Lake County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lake 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 Lake County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lake County sees about 253 frost-free days — roughly Mar 12 through Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 2 to Nov 6, about 218 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lake County?
The federal record around Lake County shows 83 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (53), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 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.
Everything above is measured at Lake County's scale — its 7b band and its 253-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lake 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 Lake County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Lake County's own scale — its own ~253-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 83 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lake County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lake County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~253-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Lake CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 83 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Lake County's boundary and the 106,102 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~253-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Lake County sitting wholly inside the Mississippi Alluvial PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Lake County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Lake 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 Lake County — the ~253 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 Lake County's 106,102 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 83 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 Lake Countyread your own land →