Pikeville, Tennessee, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
These conditions suit cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Pikeville, 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 Pikeville 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 Pikeville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Pikeville — the short answer
Pikeville, Tennessee: USDA zone 7b, about 228 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~228
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 2K 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 Pikeville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pikeville's 228-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Pikeville
Each reading below is measured for Pikeville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPikeville runs about 228 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
MeasuredPikeville 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 Pikeville is in
Pikeville sits in the Southwestern Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Pikeville's own centroid rather than borrowed from Bledsoe County.
What Grows in Pikeville
Every plant below cleared Pikeville's own zone 7b and its 228-day season. Each card opens that plant's Tennessee profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Pikeville?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 24; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 24 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 7 — 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 Pikeville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Pikeville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- VIRNIG MANUFACTURINGToxics Release Inventory · 150 ft
- Jr's MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- Pikeville ShellUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- Bledsoe Farmers Co-opUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- Bledsoe County Tdot GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- Super X-Press MartUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- J J's MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- All American MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- EXCEL SYSTEMS INCToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- City Of PikevilleUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Bl:H-010Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- Bledsoe Telephone CooperativeUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pikeville'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 Pikeville.
Total Sites
71
within ~10 miles of Pikeville
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Pikeville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Pikeville
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Pikeville, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Pikeville — PFAS (3 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (50 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Pikeville
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 Pikeville average
Your land is one point inside Pikeville
Everything above resolves to Pikeville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Pikeville Average
Pikeville Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Pikeville
- ●One soil character for all of Pikeville
- ●Frost dates read at Pikeville's scale: Mar 24 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pikeville's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Pikeville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pikeville, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pikeville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pikeville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pikeville average
How we know this about Pikeville
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 Pikeville’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 Pikeville
When does frost risk typically end in Pikeville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pikeville typically lands around Mar 24, 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 14.
When is the first frost in Pikeville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Pikeville typically arrives around Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 24, so the watching starts about Oct 8 — about 228 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Pikeville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pikeville sees about 228 frost-free days — roughly Mar 24 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 14 to Oct 24, about 193 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Pikeville?
The federal record around Pikeville shows 71 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (50), the nearest Toxics Release Inventory record under a tenth of a mile 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 Pikeville?
From about Oct 8 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 7 (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 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Pikeville's scale — its 7b band and its 228-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pikeville'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 Pikeville’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Pikeville's own scale — its own ~228-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,564 acres it covers and 71 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pikeville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pikeville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 24 and Nov 7 and the ~228-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 71 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Pikeville, the closest Toxics Release Inventory record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Pikeville's boundary and the 1,564 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~228-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Pikeville's own centroid, the Southwestern AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Pikeville's 1,564 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Bledsoe County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Bledsoe 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 Bledsoe County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Pikeville's 1,564 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Pikeville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,564 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Toxics Release Inventory record under a tenth of a mile 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 Pikeville-wide figureread your own land →