Oneida, Tennessee, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, pawpaw, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Oneida, 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 Oneida 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 Oneida — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Oneida — the short answer
Oneida, Tennessee: USDA zone 7a, about 203 days between hard freezes, across 6K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~203
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 6K 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 Oneida's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Oneida's 203-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Oneida
Each reading below is measured for Oneida itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredOneida runs about 203 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
MeasuredOneida 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 Oneida is in
Oneida sits in the Southwestern Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Oneida's own centroid rather than borrowed from Scott County.
What Grows in Oneida
Every plant below cleared Oneida's own zone 7a and its 203-day season. Each card opens that plant's Tennessee profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Oneida?
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 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 7 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 27 — 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 Oneida
Survey cells within 31 miles of Oneida checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 111 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Oneida
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Oneida. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Four Lane Service CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- Shoemaker GasUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- Taylor's BpUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- Scandlyn Oil CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- Murphy Express #8539Underground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- WALMART SUPERCENTER #583Brownfields · 1000 ft
- Big Orange Country StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- Adkins StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Tennessee DotUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Troxel MotorsUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Donut Hole And Sub ShopUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Hi-point Service CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Oneida'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 Oneida.
Total Sites
93
within ~10 miles of Oneida
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Oneida
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Oneida
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Oneida, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Oneida — Superfund (3 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (72 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Oneida
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 Oneida average
Your land is one point inside Oneida
Everything above resolves to Oneida as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 6K 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 Oneida Average
Oneida Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Oneida
- ●One soil character for all of Oneida
- ●Frost dates read at Oneida's scale: Apr 7 to Oct 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Oneida's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Oneida
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Oneida, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Oneida averages can't show:
We read public map data around Oneida — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Oneida average
How we know this about Oneida
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 Oneida’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 Oneida
When does frost risk typically end in Oneida?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Oneida typically lands around Apr 7, 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 28.
When is the first frost in Oneida?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Oneida typically arrives around Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 13, so the watching starts about Sep 27 — about 203 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Oneida?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Oneida sees about 203 frost-free days — roughly Apr 7 through Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 28 to Oct 13, about 168 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Oneida?
The federal record around Oneida is a meaningful one — 93 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (72), 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 Oneida?
From about Sep 27 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 27 (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 27. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Oneida's scale — its 7a band and its 203-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Oneida'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 Oneida’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Oneida's own scale — its own ~203-day season between 28°F freezes, the 6,006 acres it covers and 93 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Oneida's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Oneida's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 7 and Oct 27 and the ~203-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 93 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Oneida, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Oneida's boundary and the 6,006 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~203-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Oneida's own centroid, the Southwestern AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Oneida 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 Oneida's 6,006 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Scott County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Scott 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 Scott County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Oneida's 6,006 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Oneida you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 6,006 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 Oneida-wide figureread your own land →
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