Iron City, Tennessee, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Iron City, 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 Iron City 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 Iron City — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Iron City — the short answer
Iron City, Tennessee: USDA zone 7b, about 240 days between hard freezes, across 442 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~240
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 442 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 7b is Iron City's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Iron City's 240-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Iron City
Each reading below is measured for Iron City itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredIron City runs about 240 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
MeasuredIron City 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 Iron City is in
Iron City sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Iron City's own centroid rather than borrowed from Lawrence County.
What Grows in Iron City
Every plant below cleared Iron City's own zone 7b and its 240-day season. Each card opens that plant's Tennessee profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Iron City?
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 17; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 17 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 12 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Iron City
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Iron City. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Quigley's GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- Moore's GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- Mckinney's ExxonUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- Shoal Creek Market And DeliUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- P And J MobilUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- HALLS GENERAL STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.9 mi
- Stateline StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- Randy's One StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.4 mi
- Wn:C-06Nitrate · 4.5 mi
- St Joe Milling CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
- City Of St JosephUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
- Etheredge Mfg CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Iron City'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 Iron City.
Total Sites
61
within ~10 miles of Iron City
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Iron City
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Iron City
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Iron City, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 47 sites within ~10 miles of Iron City. 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 Iron City
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 Iron City average
Your land is one point inside Iron City
Everything above resolves to Iron City as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 442 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 Iron City Average
Iron City Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Iron City
- ●One soil character for all of Iron City
- ●Frost dates read at Iron City's scale: Mar 17 to Nov 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Iron City's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Iron City
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Iron City, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Iron City averages can't show:
We read public map data around Iron City — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Iron City average
How we know this about Iron City
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 Iron City’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 Iron City
When does frost risk typically end in Iron City?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Iron City typically lands around Mar 17, 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 7.
When is the first frost in Iron City?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Iron City typically arrives around Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 29, so the watching starts about Oct 13 — about 240 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Iron City?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Iron City sees about 240 frost-free days — roughly Mar 17 through Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 7 to Oct 29, about 205 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Iron City?
The federal record around Iron City is a meaningful one — 61 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (47), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Iron City?
From about Oct 13 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 12 (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 12. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Iron City's scale — its 7b band and its 240-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Iron City'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 Iron City’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Iron City's own scale — its own ~240-day season between 28°F freezes, the 442 acres it covers and 61 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Iron City's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Iron City's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 17 and Nov 12 and the ~240-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 61 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Iron City, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Iron City's boundary and the 442 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~240-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Iron City's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Iron City's 442 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Lawrence County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Lawrence 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 Lawrence County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Iron City's 442 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Iron City you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 442 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Iron City-wide figureread your own land →
More in Tennessee
Wider growing context
What grows across TennesseeIron City sits outside our named growing regions, so Tennessee as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides