Surgoinsville, Tennessee, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Expect cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Surgoinsville, 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 Surgoinsville 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 Surgoinsville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Surgoinsville — the short answer
Surgoinsville, Tennessee: USDA zone 7b, about 220 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~220
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town 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 7b is Surgoinsville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Surgoinsville's 220-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Surgoinsville
Each reading below is measured for Surgoinsville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSurgoinsville runs about 220 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
MeasuredSurgoinsville 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 Surgoinsville is in
Surgoinsville sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Surgoinsville's own centroid rather than borrowed from Hawkins County.
What Grows in Surgoinsville
Every plant below cleared Surgoinsville's own zone 7b and its 220-day season. Each card opens that plant's Tennessee profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Surgoinsville?
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 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 29 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 4 — 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.
Documented around Surgoinsville
Survey cells within 31 miles of Surgoinsville checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 35 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Surgoinsville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Surgoinsville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Shanks GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- Surgoinsville Maintenance ComplUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- Rockhouse Service StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- MIYAKE FORGING NORTH AMERICABrownfields · 2400 ft
- Mitchell M HoustonUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Roger GoldenUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Hawkins County AviationUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Dodson's GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Surgoinsville Elementary SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- John K Williams StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Roger Golden Ser. Stat.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- The 11 West Quik StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Surgoinsville'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 Surgoinsville.
Total Sites
139
within ~10 miles of Surgoinsville
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Surgoinsville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Surgoinsville
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Surgoinsville, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Surgoinsville — PFAS (5 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (15 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Surgoinsville
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 Surgoinsville average
Your land is one point inside Surgoinsville
Everything above resolves to Surgoinsville 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 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 Surgoinsville Average
Surgoinsville Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Surgoinsville
- ●One soil character for all of Surgoinsville
- ●Frost dates read at Surgoinsville's scale: Mar 29 to Nov 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Surgoinsville's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Surgoinsville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Surgoinsville, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Surgoinsville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Surgoinsville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Surgoinsville average
How we know this about Surgoinsville
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 Surgoinsville’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 Surgoinsville
When does frost risk typically end in Surgoinsville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Surgoinsville typically lands around Mar 29, 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 19.
When is the first frost in Surgoinsville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Surgoinsville typically arrives around Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 21, so the watching starts about Oct 5 — about 220 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Surgoinsville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Surgoinsville sees about 220 frost-free days — roughly Mar 29 through Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 19 to Oct 21, about 185 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Surgoinsville?
The federal record around Surgoinsville is a meaningful one — 139 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (90), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Surgoinsville?
From about Oct 5 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 4 (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 4. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Surgoinsville's scale — its 7b band and its 220-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Surgoinsville'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 Surgoinsville’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Surgoinsville's own scale — its own ~220-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,666 acres it covers and 139 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Surgoinsville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Surgoinsville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 29 and Nov 4 and the ~220-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 139 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Surgoinsville, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Surgoinsville's boundary and the 3,666 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~220-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Surgoinsville's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Surgoinsville 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 Surgoinsville's 3,666 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Hawkins County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Hawkins 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 Hawkins County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Surgoinsville's 3,666 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Surgoinsville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,666 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Surgoinsville-wide figureread your own land →
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