Jellico, 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.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Jellico, 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 Jellico 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 Jellico — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Jellico — the short answer
Jellico, Tennessee: USDA zone 7a, about 211 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~211
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 4K 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 Jellico's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Jellico's 211-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Jellico
Each reading below is measured for Jellico itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredJellico runs about 211 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
MeasuredJellico 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 Jellico is in
Jellico sits in the Central Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Jellico's own centroid rather than borrowed from Campbell County.
What Grows in Jellico
Every plant below cleared Jellico's own zone 7a and its 211-day season. Each card opens that plant's Tennessee profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Jellico?
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 Mar 6; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 3 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 31 — 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.
Documented around Jellico
Survey cells within 31 miles of Jellico checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 104 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Jellico
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Jellico. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Lehigh Gas Wholesale Services, Inc/TN0021Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Jellico Communinity HospitalUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Lehigh Gas Wholesale Services, Inc./TN0028Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- Frontier House of JellicoUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- Somerset StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- J & M Market of Jellico, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- Frontier House TexcoUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- Jellico BPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Cb:O-007Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- Publix Oil CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Valley Fuel Co., Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Chevron Facility 49734Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Jellico'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 Jellico.
Total Sites
58
within ~10 miles of Jellico
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Jellico
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Jellico
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Jellico, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 45 sites within ~10 miles of Jellico. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
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 Jellico
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 Jellico average
Your land is one point inside Jellico
Everything above resolves to Jellico as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 Jellico Average
Jellico Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Jellico
- ●One soil character for all of Jellico
- ●Frost dates read at Jellico's scale: Apr 3 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Jellico's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Jellico
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Jellico, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Jellico averages can't show:
We read public map data around Jellico — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Jellico average
How we know this about Jellico
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 Jellico’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 Jellico
When does frost risk typically end in Jellico?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Jellico typically lands around Apr 3, 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 24.
When is the first frost in Jellico?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Jellico typically arrives around Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 17, so the watching starts about Oct 1 — about 211 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Jellico?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Jellico sees about 211 frost-free days — roughly Apr 3 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 24 to Oct 17, about 176 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Jellico?
The federal record around Jellico shows 58 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (45), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Jellico?
From about Oct 1 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 Oct 31 (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 Oct 31. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Jellico's scale — its 7a band and its 211-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Jellico'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 Jellico’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Jellico's own scale — its own ~211-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,980 acres it covers and 58 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Jellico's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Jellico's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 3 and Oct 31 and the ~211-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 58 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Jellico, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Jellico's boundary and the 3,980 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~211-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Jellico's own centroid, the Central AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Jellico 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 Jellico's 3,980 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Campbell County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Campbell 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 Campbell County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Jellico's 3,980 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Jellico you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,980 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 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 Jellico-wide figureread your own land →
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