Harrogate, Tennessee, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Harrogate, 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 Harrogate 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 Harrogate — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Harrogate — the short answer
Harrogate, Tennessee: USDA zone 7a, about 222 days between hard freezes, across 5K acres of city.
- 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
- City area
- 5K 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 Harrogate's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Harrogate's 222-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Harrogate
Each reading below is measured for Harrogate itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHarrogate 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
MeasuredHarrogate 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 Harrogate is in
Harrogate sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Harrogate's own centroid rather than borrowed from Claiborne County.
What Grows in Harrogate
Every plant below cleared Harrogate'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 Harrogate?
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 Harrogate
Survey cells within 31 miles of Harrogate checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 78 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Harrogate
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Harrogate. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Lee Food Mart #19Underground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- Sunnyside ShellUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- A&A CLEANERSBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- Lee's Food Mart #2Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Crossroads SunocoUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Harrogate Hosp. For AnimalsUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- E Oscar RobertsonUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Billy R MuncyUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- Pattys Neighborhood MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- Lincoln Memorial UniversityUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- LINCOLN MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY-CUDJO CAVERN SP WTPBrownfields · 1.9 mi
- Old Cumberland View MotelUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Harrogate'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 Harrogate.
Total Sites
376
within ~10 miles of Harrogate
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Harrogate
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Harrogate
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Harrogate, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Harrogate — Mining (74 sites) and Nitrate (142 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
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 Harrogate
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 Harrogate average
Your land is one point inside Harrogate
Everything above resolves to Harrogate as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 5K 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 city 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 Harrogate Average
Harrogate Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Harrogate
- ●One soil character for all of Harrogate
- ●Frost dates read at Harrogate's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Harrogate's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Harrogate
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Harrogate, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Harrogate averages can't show:
We read public map data around Harrogate — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Harrogate average
How we know this about Harrogate
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Harrogate’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Harrogate
When does frost risk typically end in Harrogate?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Harrogate 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 Harrogate?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Harrogate 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 Harrogate?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Harrogate 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 Harrogate?
The federal record around Harrogate is a meaningful one — 376 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (142), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Harrogate?
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 Harrogate's scale — its 7a band and its 222-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Harrogate'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 Harrogate’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Harrogate's own scale — its own ~222-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,650 acres it covers and 376 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Harrogate's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Harrogate's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 5 and the ~222-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 376 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Harrogate, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Harrogate's boundary and the 4,650 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~222-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Harrogate's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Harrogate 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 Harrogate's 4,650 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 Harrogate's 4,650 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Harrogate you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,650 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Harrogate-wide figureread your own land →
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