Macon County, in 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.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Macon County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Macon 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 Macon County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Macon County — the short answer
Macon County, Tennessee: USDA zone 7b, about 238 days between hard freezes, across 197K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~238
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 197K 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 Macon County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Macon County's 238-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Macon County
Across a year, Macon County accumulates about 4,193 growing degree days above 50°F, about 80 more than the middle Tennessee county — ahead of 62 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 2,196 hours below 45°F, 137 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 Macon County
Across Macon County, the ground is predominantly Inceptisols, where Hawthorne, Sugargrove, and Dickson are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a gravelly silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.3–5.9, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Inceptisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
16%
Hydric soils
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Macon County
The USDA soil survey maps 50% of Macon County as well drained — but another 50% drains differently: 37% somewhat excessively drained, 12% moderately well drained.
Hawthorne is the most extensive named soil at 32% of mapped acres, then Sugargrove (22%) and Dickson (8%).
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 Macon County
Each reading below is measured for Macon 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 Macon 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 Macon County runs about pH 4.3–5.9, 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
MeasuredMacon County runs about 238 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
MeasuredMacon 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 Macon County is in
Macon County sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Macon County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Macon County's own USDA zone 7b and its own 238-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 Macon County?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 21 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 14 — 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 Macon County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Macon County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 34 miles off. What to watch for.
What gets applied to farmland in Macon County
USGS estimates 35,231 lb of Glyphosate on Macon County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (15,601 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (10,435 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 Macon County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Macon County — 99 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Macon 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 Macon County
Closest first, across Macon County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- VOLUNTEER ADHESIVESToxics Release Inventory · 0.7 mi
- Lafayette Wastewater PlantUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- Carter Automotive Co IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- CARTER AUTOMOTIVE CO INCToxics Release Inventory · 1.1 mi
- TENNPLASCO, LLCBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- TENNPLASCO, LLCToxics Release Inventory · 1.1 mi
- C and K GasUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- Macon-Trousdale Farmers CoopUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- BLUE NOSE LLCBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- IGA Express Shell # 832Underground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- Day And Nite MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- Donoho GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Macon 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 Macon County.
Total Sites
99
across Macon County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Macon County
Severity Distribution
across Macon County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Macon County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 81 sites across Macon 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 Macon 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 Macon County average
Your land is one point inside Macon County
Everything above resolves to Macon County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 197K 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 Macon County Average
Macon County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Macon County
- ●One soil character for all of Macon County
- ●Frost dates read at Macon County's scale: Mar 21 to Nov 14
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Macon County's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Macon County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Macon County, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Macon County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Macon County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Macon County average
How we know this about Macon 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 Macon County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Macon County
When does frost risk typically end in Macon County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Macon County typically lands around Mar 21, 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 11.
How long is the growing season in Macon County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Macon County sees about 238 frost-free days — roughly Mar 21 through Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 11 to Oct 31, about 203 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Macon County?
The federal record around Macon County shows 99 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (81), the nearest Toxics Release Inventory 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 Macon County's scale — its 7b band and its 238-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Macon 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 Macon County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Macon County's own scale — its own ~238-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 99 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Macon County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Macon County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~238-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Macon CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 99 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.7 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Macon County's boundary and the 196,572 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~238-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Macon County sitting wholly inside the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Macon 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 Macon County — the ~238 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 Macon County's 196,572 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 99 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 Macon Countyread your own land →