The Everglades Agricultural Area spans USDA hardiness zones 10a-10b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
The Everglades Agricultural Area is roughly 700,000 acres of drained peat-and-muck farmland south of Lake Okeechobee, defined under Florida's Everglades Forever Act (§373.4592, F.S.); its member counties span USDA zones 10a to 10b with a frost-free to 326-plus-day growing season, the deep organic soils behind the region's sugarcane and winter-vegetable harvests. These conditions suit mango, tomato, orange, and sweet potato — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
The Everglades Agricultural Area spans Florida.
Your yard isn't all of the Everglades Agricultural Area.
The Everglades Agricultural Area spans USDA zones 10a-10b, but your parcel sits in exactly one — and slope, tree cover, and low spots nudge it further. 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 Everglades Agricultural Area — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
The Everglades Agricultural Area — the short answer
The Everglades Agricultural Area: USDA zones 10a-10b, 326–365 frost-free days depending where in it you stand, in Florida.
- USDA zones
- 10a-10b
- USDA PHZM 2023, aggregated over the footprint
- Shortest season here
- 326 days
- NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020 — Glades County
- Counties
- 4
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Region type
- County cluster
- Growable Ground growing-region registry
Region boundary: Growable Ground growing-region registry — curated county clusters, EPA Level III ecoregions, and town clusters drawn finer than any county. The season figure is this region's own record, measured across its 4 member counties, not a state or national average.
Hardiness Zone Range
The Everglades Agricultural Area is not one growing season
One answer for the Everglades Agricultural Area averages 4 counties whose growing seasons are 39 days apart — from 326 frost-free days in Glades County to 365 in Palm Beach County. That is the same region, measured the same way, in the same years. Which end of it your land sits nearer decides what finishes before the first hard freeze.
The middle half of 4 counties runs 328–339 days, with a median of 330 days — a 39-day span end to end.
Measured across 4 member counties, each carrying its own 28°F normal. NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020. A member with no own record is absent from the range rather than counted as zero — nothing here is interpolated to the region. Your own site sits somewhere inside this range; a parcel report resolves where.
Where the line runs inside the Everglades Agricultural Area
The middle half of the Everglades Agricultural Area runs 328–339 frost-free days, and 2 of its 4 counties sit outside that — 1 on the short side, 1 on the long. A regional planting date describes the middle well and the ends poorly, which is worth knowing before you follow one.
Under 328 frost-free days
1 county
- Glades County · 326 days
The end of the region that sets the planting calendar — start seed indoors here and the season stretches to meet the crop.
328–339 frost-free days
2 counties
0 of 2 shown
The middle half of the region, and the part a single regional season describes well.
Over 339 frost-free days
1 county
- Palm Beach County · 365 days
Long enough for a second succession of a quick crop after the first comes out.
Each county is placed by its OWN 28°F frost-free normal (NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020), the same figure its own guide page publishes. Elevation, slope and cold-air drainage move a site within its county as well — which is the part only your address resolves.
What Grows in the Everglades Agricultural Area
All 3 of the plants below that publish a season requirement clear even Glades County’s 326 frost-free days — so on season alone, this grid works at both ends of the region. The 39-day spread still decides how far past this list you can push, and how early you can start.
Plants matched to the Everglades Agricultural Area's USDA zones 10a-10b, ordered by how much hardiness margin each has across the region — the ones with room to spare at both ends of this band lead. Each links to its full growing profile.
Native Plants of the Everglades Agricultural Area
Plants the USDA PLANTS Database documents as native and present in this region’s state, kept only where the published hardiness range meets the Everglades Agricultural Area’s USDA zones 10a-10b — closest range match first. Presence is recorded by state, so a plant can be documented across the state and still be scarce in your corner of the region.
The ground across the Everglades Agricultural Area
The USDA soil survey maps this ground county by county. These are those records weighted by land area across four member counties — this region’s own profile, not a state figure.
The ground is predominantly Histosols, at 32% of mapped acres, followed by Alfisols (26%), Spodosols (25%) and Entisols (11%). Six soil orders appear somewhere inside the footprint, which is the honest reason a regional soil answer only goes so far. The most extensive named soils are Riviera, Terra Ceia, and Immokalee.
44% of those acres are poorly drained, and another 40% very poorly drained, 1% somewhat poorly drained. Topsoil pH runs 4.5–6.3 between the lowest and the highest county on record.
Soil order
Histosols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Topsoil pH
4.5–6.3
Hydric soils
68%
Soil changes across a driveway, so which of these your own ground sits on is a parcel question rather than a regional one. Palm Beach County holds the most wetland ground here, at 85% — soil types explained.
USDA NRCS SSURGO via Soil Data Access
What this means for growing in the Everglades Agricultural Area
The soil survey reads this ground county by county, and the readings above are those records summed across the Everglades Agricultural Area. Here is what they mean for a garden here — and the move an experienced grower makes about each one.
Drainage
From county records44% of the mapped acres across the Everglades Agricultural Area are poorly drained — ground that sheds water slowly. That is area-weighted across all four of its mapped counties.
Beds can stay saturated for days after heavy rain, and the roots of most vegetables, berries, and fruit trees suffocate or rot in soil that never drains.
Raised beds or mounded rows lift roots above the wet zone; choose water-tolerant crops for the lowest spots.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
From county recordsTopsoil across the Everglades Agricultural Area runs pH 4.5–6.3 — acidic in all four of them.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across the Everglades Agricultural Area — and how to grow with it.
Across the Everglades Agricultural Area's 4 counties the federal record holds 6,113 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks (2,915), Brownfields (2,078) and Nitrate (946). The heaviest single county is Palm Beach County, with 4,868.
That is a regional count, not a reading of any one lot — proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis. Open the map outlined to the Everglades Agricultural Area to see which records sit where you actually grow.
Sources Checked
Summed across the 4 counties in the Everglades Agricultural Area
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
Your land is one point inside the Everglades Agricultural Area
Everything above resolves to the Everglades Agricultural Area as a whole — a footprint whose own counties record seasons 39 days apart, and hardiness across zones 10a-10b. Your parcel sits at one point in that range, not in the middle of it. 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 region 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 regional average.
Your Lot vs the Everglades Agricultural Area Average
Everglades Agricultural Area Average
- ●USDA Zones 10a-10b, averaged across Everglades Agricultural Area
- ●One soil character for all of Everglades Agricultural Area
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Everglades Agricultural Area's 10a-10b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in the Everglades Agricultural Area
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in the Everglades Agricultural Area — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, contamination, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Everglades Agricultural Area averages can't show:
We read public map data around The Everglades Agricultural Area — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Everglades Agricultural Area average
How we know this about the Everglades Agricultural Area
The boundary: a cluster of neighboring counties. Growing regions have no official boundary, so this footprint is our published one, and every figure on this page was measured over the counties inside it rather than borrowed from the state around it.
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, aggregated across the footprint; the growing season from NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS 1991–2020 28°F normals, read at each member’s own record; boundaries from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination record from the federal sources named in that beat above; the soil from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, read at each member county’s own record and weighted to this footprint by land area. Where a member carries no record of its own, it is absent from the figure rather than filled in.
Common questions about the Everglades Agricultural Area
What hardiness zone is the Everglades Agricultural Area?
The Everglades Agricultural Area spans USDA hardiness zones 10a-10b, aggregated from the USDA Agricultural Research Service Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023 across the region's counties. Zones reflect average annual extreme minimum temperatures from 1991–2020 data.
How long is the growing season in the Everglades Agricultural Area?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, the Everglades Agricultural Area's counties mostly run 328 to 339 frost-free days, median 330 (NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991–2020, over 4 member counties). That 11-day spread is the honest read — no single season describes 4 counties, and each county guide below carries its own.
When does frost risk end in the Everglades Agricultural Area?
Across the Everglades Agricultural Area, the middle half of member counties see their last 28°F hard freeze between Jan 21 and Jan 24 (median Jan 22), and their first fall freeze between Dec 15 and Dec 18. Those are hard freezes, not the last light frost: tender transplants wait for about Feb 12, and elevation decides which end of a 3-day spread you garden in.
What grows well in the Everglades Agricultural Area?
The Everglades Agricultural Area's conditions suit plants such as Mango, Tomato, Orange, Sweet Potato, Banana, Jalapeno. What actually thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage — we score each plant against the real conditions at your address.
How is the Everglades Agricultural Area defined?
The Everglades Agricultural Area is defined here as a curated cluster of 4 neighboring counties that share a growing character. Growing regions have no official boundary, so this footprint is our published one — every county in it is named on this page.
Which states does the Everglades Agricultural Area cover?
The Everglades Agricultural Area spans Florida. Each state's full growing guide is linked on this page.
What other growing regions cover the same states?
Gulf Coast, Florida Panhandle, Northeast Florida, Southwest Florida (Naples–Fort Myers–Sarasota), Central Florida Ridge, and Tampa Bay share at least one state with the Everglades Agricultural Area. Growing regions overlap and interlock — a single address can sit inside more than one, which is why the precise read is always the parcel, not the region.
What this page reads at the Everglades Agricultural Area’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at the Everglades Agricultural Area's own scale — the zone 10a-10b band across its footprint, a median 330-day season across its 4 counties and 6,113 documented federal contamination records across its 4 counties, 4,868 of them in Palm Beach County alone; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- The USDA hardiness band 10a-10b aggregated across all 4 counties in the footprintUSDA PHZM 2023
- The boundary itself — the 4 counties this region is curated fromGrowable Ground subregion registry
- The growing character that makes this region distinct from the states it crossesGrowable Ground subregion registry
- The 28°F season across the footprint — the middle half of its 4 counties run 328 to 339 frost-free days, median 330NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- The federal contamination record over the whole footprint — 6,113 documented federal contamination records across its 4 counties, 4,868 of them in Palm Beach County aloneEPA, USGS and USDA federal site records
- The soil order mix across the footprint — 32% Histosols, topsoil pH 4.5–6.3, area-weighted across its 4 mapped countiesUSDA NRCS SSURGO
Inherited from a wider read
- The candidate plant list — its state's curated sets, merged and filtered to zones 10a-10bfrom Florida
What this page can’t tell you
- Which end of the 11-day range your ground sits at — 328 days at one extreme, 339 at the other, decided mostly by elevationfrost dates explained →
- Which of those soils your own ground sits on — the survey maps them county-wide, and they change across a drivewaysoil types explained →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on one specific lotwhy one lot differs from the next →
Explore the Everglades Agricultural Area
State growing guides
Counties in this region
Other growing regions across Florida
The humid, near-frost-free coastal rim of the Gulf of Mexico — long seasons, sandy and alluvial soils, heat, and hurricanes shaping what thrives. (Representative coastal counties, not exhaustive.)
North Florida's mild-winter coastal plain of sandy and clay soils — a transition zone growing both Southern staples and subtropical fruit.
The Atlantic-facing northeast peninsula — Jacksonville, Gainesville, and St. Augustine along the St. Johns River — where ocean-moderated Zone 9a–9b winters and deep sandy coastal-plain flatwoods set a warmer floor and a tighter, earlier frost window than the Gulf-side Panhandle to the west (no genuine 8b interior here; last frost lands ~late January to mid-February).
Florida's lower Gulf coast — a near-frost-free subtropical corridor (USDA zone 10a–10b along the shore, dropping to 9b in the DeSoto interior) where mangrove shorelines, sandy and marl soils, and hurricane exposure shape what grows. Year-round warm-season vegetables and mainland tropical fruit thrive here on a Gulf-side footprint distinct from both the cooler Central Florida interior and the Atlantic shore at the same latitude.
The Lake Wales Ridge, a well-drained white-sand spine running about 100 miles down the Florida peninsula from Lake County south through Orange, Osceola, Polk, and Highlands, anchors this historic citrus belt in USDA zones 9b–10a with 323-to-335-day frost-free seasons.
Florida's central Gulf-coast metro, where Tampa Bay's water holds the immediate shoreline in near-frost-free zone 10a while the ridge just inland at Pasco drops to 9b — a maritime coastal-versus-interior split at one latitude that changes when tender crops can safely go in the ground.