Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Cumberland Gap, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Cumberland Gap lot. 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 Cumberland Gap — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Cumberland Gap — the short answer
Cumberland Gap, Tennessee: USDA zone 7a, about 222 days between hard freezes, across 211 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~222
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 211 acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 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 7a is Cumberland Gap's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cumberland Gap's 222-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cumberland Gap
Each reading below is measured for Cumberland Gap itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCumberland Gap runs about 222 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
MeasuredCumberland Gap sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Cumberland Gap is in
Cumberland Gap sits in the Central Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Cumberland Gap's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Claiborne County is mostly Ridge and Valley. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Cumberland Gap
Every plant below cleared Cumberland Gap's own zone 7a and its 222-day season. Each card opens that plant's Tennessee profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Cumberland Gap?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 5 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Cumberland Gap
Survey cells within 31 miles of Cumberland Gap checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 79 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Cumberland Gap
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cumberland Gap. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Old Cumberland View MotelUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- Lincoln Memorial UniversityUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- LINCOLN MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY-CUDJO CAVERN SP WTPBrownfields · 1800 ft
- Pattys Neighborhood MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Cumberland Gap National Historical ParkUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- K25C0027Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- Belk Simpson Co 496Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- K25CS002Nitrate · 1.1 mi
- Lee's Food Mart #2Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- A&A CLEANERSBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- K25C0029Nitrate · 1.4 mi
- K25C0028Nitrate · 1.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cumberland Gap'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 Cumberland Gap.
Total Sites
334
within ~10 miles of Cumberland Gap
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cumberland Gap
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cumberland Gap
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cumberland Gap, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Cumberland Gap — Mining (59 sites) and Nitrate (148 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Cumberland Gap
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 Cumberland Gap average
Your land is one point inside Cumberland Gap
Everything above resolves to Cumberland Gap as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 211 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 town 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 local average.
Your Lot vs the Cumberland Gap Average
Cumberland Gap Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Cumberland Gap
- ●One soil character for all of Cumberland Gap
- ●Frost dates read at Cumberland Gap's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cumberland Gap's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cumberland Gap
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cumberland Gap, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cumberland Gap averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cumberland Gap — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cumberland Gap average
How we know this about Cumberland Gap
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Cumberland Gap’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Cumberland Gap
When does frost risk typically end in Cumberland Gap?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cumberland Gap typically lands around Mar 28, 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 18.
When is the first frost in Cumberland Gap?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cumberland Gap typically arrives around Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 22, so the watching starts about Oct 6 — about 222 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Cumberland Gap?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cumberland Gap sees about 222 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Oct 22, about 187 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cumberland Gap?
The federal record around Cumberland Gap is a meaningful one — 334 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (148), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Cumberland Gap?
From about Oct 6 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Nov 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Nov 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Cumberland Gap's scale — its 7a band and its 222-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cumberland Gap's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Cumberland Gap’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Cumberland Gap's own scale — its own ~222-day season between 28°F freezes, the 211 acres it covers and 334 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cumberland Gap's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cumberland Gap's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 5 and the ~222-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 334 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cumberland Gap, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cumberland Gap's boundary and the 211 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~222-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Cumberland Gap sits in the Central Appalachians — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Cumberland Gap checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Cumberland Gap's 211 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Claiborne County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Claiborne County
- The growing challenges every Tennessee grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Tennessee
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Claiborne County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Cumberland Gap's 211 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cumberland Gap you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 211 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Cumberland Gap-wide figureread your own land →
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