St. Joseph, 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.
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 St. Joseph, 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 St. Joseph 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 St. Joseph — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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St. Joseph — the short answer
St. Joseph, Tennessee: USDA zone 7b, about 236 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~236
- 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 St. Joseph's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against St. Joseph's 236-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in St. Joseph
Each reading below is measured for St. Joseph itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSt. Joseph runs about 236 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
MeasuredSt. Joseph 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 St. Joseph is in
St. Joseph sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at St. Joseph's own centroid rather than borrowed from Lawrence County.
What Grows in St. Joseph
Every plant below cleared St. Joseph's own zone 7b and its 236-day season. Each card opens that plant's Tennessee profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in St. Joseph?
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 Feb 18; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 18 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 9 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
What's on the federal record near St. Joseph
Closest first, within ~10 miles of St. Joseph. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HALE PRODUCTS INCBrownfields · 1300 ft
- Charlies GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- St Joe Milling CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- City Of St JosephUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- TEXAS EASTERN-TRANSMISSION CORP MP 185.Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- Randy's One StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Carter's Video,tanning And PizzaUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- Stateline StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- Loretto Car WashUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- COUNTRY MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
- GREENHILL PLUMBINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
- JOHNSON DRUM SITESuperfund · 3.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from St. Joseph'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 St. Joseph.
Total Sites
68
within ~10 miles of St. Joseph
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of St. Joseph
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of St. Joseph
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around St. Joseph, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of St. Joseph — PFAS (3 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (55 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 St. Joseph
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 St. Joseph average
Your land is one point inside St. Joseph
Everything above resolves to St. Joseph 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 St. Joseph Average
St. Joseph Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across St. Joseph
- ●One soil character for all of St. Joseph
- ●Frost dates read at St. Joseph's scale: Mar 18 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not St. Joseph's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in St. Joseph
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in St. Joseph, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that St. Joseph averages can't show:
We read public map data around St. Joseph — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the St. Joseph average
How we know this about St. Joseph
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 St. Joseph’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 St. Joseph
When does frost risk typically end in St. Joseph?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in St. Joseph typically lands around Mar 18, 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 8.
When is the first frost in St. Joseph?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in St. Joseph typically arrives around Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 26, so the watching starts about Oct 10 — about 236 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in St. Joseph?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, St. Joseph sees about 236 frost-free days — roughly Mar 18 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 8 to Oct 26, about 201 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in St. Joseph?
The federal record around St. Joseph is a meaningful one — 68 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (55), the nearest Brownfields 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 St. Joseph?
From about Oct 10 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 9 (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 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at St. Joseph's scale — its 7b band and its 236-day season. Your yard writes its own version of St. Joseph'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 St. Joseph’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at St. Joseph's own scale — its own ~236-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,410 acres it covers and 68 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- St. Joseph's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- St. Joseph's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 18 and Nov 9 and the ~236-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 68 documented contamination sites on the federal record near St. Joseph, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- St. Joseph's boundary and the 2,410 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~236-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at St. Joseph's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so St. Joseph's 2,410 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Lawrence County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Lawrence 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 Lawrence County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among St. Joseph's 2,410 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of St. Joseph you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,410 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 St. Joseph-wide figureread your own land →
More in Tennessee
Wider growing context
What grows across TennesseeSt. Joseph sits outside our named growing regions, so Tennessee as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides