Rarity Bay, Tennessee, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
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 Rarity Bay, 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 Rarity Bay 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 Rarity Bay — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Rarity Bay — the short answer
Rarity Bay, Tennessee: USDA zone 7b, about 238 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- 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 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~238
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town 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 Rarity Bay's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Rarity Bay's 238-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Rarity Bay
Each reading below is measured for Rarity Bay itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredRarity Bay runs about 238 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
MeasuredRarity Bay 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 Rarity Bay is in
Rarity Bay sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Rarity Bay's own centroid rather than borrowed from Monroe County.
What Grows in Rarity Bay
Every plant below cleared Rarity Bay's own zone 7b and its 238-day season. Each card opens that plant's Tennessee profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Rarity Bay?
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 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.
Documented around Rarity Bay
Survey cells within 31 miles of Rarity Bay checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 79 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Rarity Bay
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Rarity Bay. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MASTERCRAFT BOAT COMPANYBrownfields · 1.5 mi
- MASTERCRAFT BOAT COMPANYToxics Release Inventory · 1.5 mi
- SEA RAY INC - TELLICO FACILITYToxics Release Inventory · 1.6 mi
- SEA RAY INC - TELLICO FACILITYBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- Searay Boats CorpUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- NATIONAL SEATING COToxics Release Inventory · 1.8 mi
- NATIONAL SEATING COBrownfields · 1.8 mi
- MASTERCRAFT BOAT COMPANY, TRAILER SHOPBrownfields · 1.8 mi
- Sea Ray\Cherokee CoveUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- Rarity Bay BPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- CARLEX GLASS COBrownfields · 1.9 mi
- CARLEX GLASS COToxics Release Inventory · 1.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Rarity Bay'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 Rarity Bay.
Total Sites
189
within ~10 miles of Rarity Bay
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Rarity Bay
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Rarity Bay
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Rarity Bay, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Rarity Bay — Toxics Release Inventory (30 sites) and Superfund (3 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Rarity Bay
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 Rarity Bay average
Your land is one point inside Rarity Bay
Everything above resolves to Rarity Bay 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 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 Rarity Bay Average
Rarity Bay Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Rarity Bay
- ●One soil character for all of Rarity Bay
- ●Frost dates read at Rarity Bay's scale: Mar 19 to Nov 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Rarity Bay's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Rarity Bay
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Rarity Bay, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Rarity Bay averages can't show:
We read public map data around Rarity Bay — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Rarity Bay average
How we know this about Rarity Bay
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 Rarity Bay’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 Rarity Bay
When does frost risk typically end in Rarity Bay?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Rarity Bay 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 Rarity Bay?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Rarity Bay 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 238 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Rarity Bay?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Rarity Bay sees about 238 frost-free days — roughly Mar 19 through Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 9 to Oct 29, about 203 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Rarity Bay?
The federal record around Rarity Bay is a meaningful one — 189 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (107), the nearest Brownfields record about 1.5 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 Rarity Bay?
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 Rarity Bay's scale — its 7b band and its 238-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Rarity Bay'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 Rarity Bay’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Rarity Bay's own scale — its own ~238-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,167 acres it covers and 189 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Rarity Bay's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Rarity Bay's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 19 and Nov 12 and the ~238-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 189 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Rarity Bay, the closest Brownfields record about 1.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Rarity Bay's boundary and the 1,167 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~238-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Rarity Bay's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Rarity Bay 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 Rarity Bay's 1,167 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Monroe County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Monroe 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 Monroe County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Rarity Bay's 1,167 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Rarity Bay you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,167 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 1.5 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 Rarity Bay-wide figureread your own land →
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