McMinn 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.
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.
McMinn County lies within Appalachia — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
McMinn County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across McMinn 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 McMinn County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
McMinn County — the short answer
McMinn County, Tennessee: USDA zone 7b, about 231 days between hard freezes, across 275K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~231
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 275K 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 McMinn County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against McMinn County's 231-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in McMinn County
Across a year, McMinn County accumulates about 4,113 growing degree days above 50°F, right at the Tennessee middle — ahead of 47 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 1,997 hours below 45°F, 62 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 McMinn County
Across McMinn County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Fullerton, Bodine, and Coile are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a gravelly silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.0–5.5, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
15%
Hydric soils
2%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across McMinn County
The USDA soil survey maps 77% of McMinn County as well drained — but another 19% drains differently: 9% somewhat excessively drained, 8% moderately well drained.
Fullerton is the most extensive named soil at 25% of mapped acres, then Bodine (9%) and Coile (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 McMinn County
Each reading below is measured for McMinn 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 McMinn 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 McMinn County runs about pH 5.0–5.5, 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
MeasuredMcMinn County runs about 231 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
MeasuredMcMinn 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 McMinn County is in
McMinn County sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in McMinn County
We scored all 1,086 plants against McMinn County's own USDA zone 7b and its own 231-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 McMinn 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 24; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 24 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 10 — 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.
What gets applied to farmland in McMinn County
USGS estimates 33,243 lb of Glyphosate on McMinn County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (8,808 lb) and 2,4-d (6,168 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 McMinn County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across McMinn County — 276 documented sites across 8 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 4 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed). 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 McMinn 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 McMinn County
Closest first, across McMinn County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Roadway Express, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- TAYLOR PITTSBURGHToxics Release Inventory · 1.1 mi
- Tennessee Mountain MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- Athens Furniture, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- ATHENS FURNITURE INCToxics Release Inventory · 1.2 mi
- Bulk PlantUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Sunrise Market no. 15Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- ATHENS REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER LLC DBA STARR REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER ATHENSBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- BENTLEY MILLS INCToxics Release Inventory · 1.3 mi
- ABB INSTALLATION PRODUCTS INC.Brownfields · 1.4 mi
- ABB INSTALLATION PRODUCTS INC.Toxics Release Inventory · 1.4 mi
- Friendly City Service StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from McMinn 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 McMinn County.
Total Sites
276
across McMinn County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
4 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Severity Distribution
across McMinn County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around McMinn County, two things run higher than the national average across McMinn County — Toxics Release Inventory (32 sites) and PFAS (3 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in McMinn 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 McMinn County average
Your land is one point inside McMinn County
Everything above resolves to McMinn County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 275K 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 McMinn County Average
McMinn County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across McMinn County
- ●One soil character for all of McMinn County
- ●Frost dates read at McMinn County's scale: Mar 24 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not McMinn County's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in McMinn County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in McMinn County, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that McMinn County averages can't show:
We read public map data around McMinn County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the McMinn County average
How we know this about McMinn 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 McMinn County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about McMinn County
When does frost risk typically end in McMinn County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in McMinn County typically lands around Mar 24, 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 14.
How long is the growing season in McMinn County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, McMinn County sees about 231 frost-free days — roughly Mar 24 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 14 to Oct 27, about 196 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in McMinn County?
The federal record around McMinn County is a meaningful one — 276 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (198), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.0 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 McMinn County's scale — its 7b band and its 231-day season. Your yard writes its own version of McMinn 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 McMinn County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at McMinn County's own scale — its own ~231-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 276 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- McMinn County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- McMinn County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~231-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in McMinn CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 276 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.0 miles outFederal environmental registers
- McMinn County's boundary and the 275,274 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~231-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- McMinn County sitting wholly inside the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto McMinn 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 McMinn County — the ~231 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 McMinn County's 275,274 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 276 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 McMinn Countyread your own land →