No such thing as to many questions when you are learning to garden in a new area.

Welcome to Tn. I hope you can get everything set.
Are you asking for frost dates?

Some fruit trees require a certain amount of cold to grow and produce fruit properly. These are called "chill hours."
Best bet may be local nurseries for information. I think they pay more attention to them on the West Coast than around here.

Thanks for the answers. Yes, I am asking about chill hours so I can sort through fruit tree varieties. I did move from the high desert in CA where chill hours and what would fruit could vary greatly depending on altitude. I was also in a very rural area and too lazy to drive into town if I wanted something so it was easier to grow or raise our food. Anything seemed to grow if given enough rotted manure and hay and water. Here everything grows too well--I am not used to weeds--if it wasn't watered it didn't grow and everything was on timed drip irrigation systems customized almost down to the individual plant. I have a whole new world to figure out and my first step is to find the ground under the weeds! Our yard is very overgrown including weeds and grass growning over concrete walkways! I feel like I need a whip and a chair to keep the stuff (including a dead tree 30 feet tall covered in poison ivy) from overtaking me. I guess trying to plan is a bit premature yet--I still need to tame what is in the yard first and I only have a few weeks left before I start classes again.

Charlotte

Charlotte,

All areas in Tennessee, and probably anywhere in zone 6 and 7 are high chill areas. In fact the zone 6/7 area gets more chill than anywhere further north or south excluding the maritime regions in the Pacific NW and Atlantic NE. We get more than enough chill to satisfy any plant's requirement, therefore it is difficult finding any information concerning chill hours here, as it is more or less irrelevant. The problem here is when you grow very low chill plants, they tend to break bud too early in spring and get zapped by frost. Therefore, you should try to plant the highest chill requiring fruit trees you can find.

Once you get used to the area, you'll love it. There's this marvelous stuff called "rain" that comes all year round, especially in the summer (or it's supposed to anyway) which means you don't have to water everything all the time.
I grew up in Los Angeles and spent a lot of time at my parents in Dessert Hot Springs so I understand what you're used to.
It's very lush here in a way it never gets on the West Coast. There are a lot more good smelling plants growing here, too. I was driving home the other night down a two-lane in East Tennessee smelling the new mown hay, magnolias and honeysuckle. It was wonderful.
But what you gain in not watering you lose in trying to hack back the weeds and mowing the lawn.

The only information about chill hours I could find is that zone 8 has from 600 to 1200 chill hours. Couldn't find anything for your zone 7. However, I did find a lot of nurseries that listed fruit tree cultivars by zone. Try googling zone 7 chill hours.