Minor Hill, Tennessee, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Minor Hill, 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 Minor Hill 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 Minor Hill — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Minor Hill — the short answer
Minor Hill, Tennessee: USDA zone 7b, about 237 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~237
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 1K 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 Minor Hill's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Minor Hill's 237-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Minor Hill
Each reading below is measured for Minor Hill itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMinor Hill runs about 237 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
MeasuredMinor Hill 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 Minor Hill is in
Minor Hill sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Minor Hill's own centroid rather than borrowed from Giles County.
What Grows in Minor Hill
Every plant below cleared Minor Hill's own zone 7b and its 237-day season. Each card opens that plant's Tennessee profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Minor Hill?
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 19; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 19 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 11 — 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's on the federal record near Minor Hill
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Minor Hill. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Top of the Hill MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- Aubrey Thorne GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Minor Hill General StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Glover MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- D and S GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- Howord GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- C And H VarietyUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- MINOR HILL WATER UTIL DISTPFAS · 2.5 mi
- Hill Top GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.2 mi
- WALLACE GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.8 mi
- FRED ROBERTSONUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.8 mi
- J's One StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Minor Hill'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 Minor Hill.
Total Sites
38
within ~10 miles of Minor Hill
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
2 concentrated animal feeding operations
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Minor Hill
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Minor Hill
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Minor Hill, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 30 sites within ~10 miles of Minor Hill. 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 Minor Hill
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 Minor Hill average
Your land is one point inside Minor Hill
Everything above resolves to Minor Hill as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Minor Hill Average
Minor Hill Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Minor Hill
- ●One soil character for all of Minor Hill
- ●Frost dates read at Minor Hill's scale: Mar 19 to Nov 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Minor Hill's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Minor Hill
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Minor Hill, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Minor Hill averages can't show:
We read public map data around Minor Hill — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Minor Hill average
How we know this about Minor Hill
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 Minor Hill’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 Minor Hill
When does frost risk typically end in Minor Hill?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Minor Hill typically lands around Mar 19, 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 9.
When is the first frost in Minor Hill?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Minor Hill typically arrives around Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 28, so the watching starts about Oct 12 — about 237 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Minor Hill?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Minor Hill sees about 237 frost-free days — roughly Mar 19 through Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 9 to Oct 28, about 202 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Minor Hill?
The federal record around Minor Hill shows 38 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (30), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Minor Hill?
From about Oct 12 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 11 (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 11. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Minor Hill's scale — its 7b band and its 237-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Minor Hill'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 Minor Hill’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Minor Hill's own scale — its own ~237-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,191 acres it covers and 38 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Minor Hill's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Minor Hill's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 19 and Nov 11 and the ~237-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 38 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Minor Hill, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Minor Hill's boundary and the 1,191 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~237-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Minor Hill's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Minor Hill's 1,191 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Giles County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Giles 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 Giles County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Minor Hill's 1,191 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Minor Hill you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,191 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 Minor Hill-wide figureread your own land →
More in Tennessee
Wider growing context
What grows across TennesseeMinor Hill sits outside our named growing regions, so Tennessee as a whole is its closest context here.