Red Bank, Tennessee, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
These conditions suit cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Red Bank, 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 Red Bank 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 Red Bank — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Red Bank — the short answer
Red Bank, Tennessee: USDA zone 8a, about 251 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~251
- 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 8a is Red Bank's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Red Bank's 251-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Red Bank
Each reading below is measured for Red Bank itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredRed Bank runs about 251 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
MeasuredRed Bank sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
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 Red Bank is in
Red Bank sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Red Bank's own centroid rather than borrowed from Hamilton County.
What Grows in Red Bank
Every plant below cleared Red Bank's own zone 8a and its 251-day season. Each card opens that plant's Tennessee profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Red Bank?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 19 — 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 Red Bank
Survey cells within 31 miles of Red Bank checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 91 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Red Bank
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Red Bank. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Red Bank ShellUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- Clyde E LayneUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- Kangaroo Express No. 3493Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- Dayton Plaza Service CtrUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- Gas N Go no. 3727Underground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- Chattanooga Brick And Tile Co.Underground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- South Central-chtgtnrbUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- Bi-lo, LlcUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Bp Station No. 24381Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Mapco #3681Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Red Bank MotelUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Former Red Bank MotelUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Red Bank'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 Red Bank.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Red Bank
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Red Bank
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Red Bank, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Red Bank — Toxics Release Inventory (141 sites) and Superfund (26 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 Red Bank
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 Red Bank average
Your land is one point inside Red Bank
Everything above resolves to Red Bank 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 Red Bank Average
Red Bank Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Red Bank
- ●One soil character for all of Red Bank
- ●Frost dates read at Red Bank's scale: Mar 13 to Nov 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Red Bank's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Red Bank
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Red Bank, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Red Bank averages can't show:
We read public map data around Red Bank — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Red Bank average
How we know this about Red Bank
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 Red Bank’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 Red Bank
When does frost risk typically end in Red Bank?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Red Bank typically lands around Mar 13, 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 3.
When is the first frost in Red Bank?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Red Bank typically arrives around Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 5, so the watching starts about Oct 20 — about 251 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Red Bank?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Red Bank sees about 251 frost-free days — roughly Mar 13 through Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 3 to Nov 5, about 216 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Red Bank?
The federal record around Red Bank runs heavier than most — 1,410 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (960), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Red Bank?
From about Oct 20 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 19 (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 19. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Red Bank's scale — its 8a band and its 251-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Red Bank'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 Red Bank’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Red Bank's own scale — its own ~251-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,197 acres it covers and 1,410 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Red Bank's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Red Bank's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 13 and Nov 19 and the ~251-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,410 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Red Bank, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Red Bank's boundary and the 4,197 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~251-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Red Bank's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Red Bank 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 Red Bank's 4,197 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Hamilton County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Hamilton 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 Hamilton County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Red Bank's 4,197 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Red Bank you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,197 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 Red Bank-wide figureread your own land →
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