Apollo Beach, Florida, sits in USDA hardiness zone 10a — 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 artichoke, meyer lemon, california poppy, and cabbage; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Apollo Beach, 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 Apollo Beach 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 Apollo Beach — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Apollo Beach — the short answer
Apollo Beach, Florida: USDA zone 10a, no 28°F killing freeze on record — the season is year-round, across 13K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 10a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Killing freeze
- None on record
- NOAA RCC ACIS 1991–2020, this town’s own record
- Town area
- 13K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. The year-round finding is measured — a 30-year record with no 28°F killing freeze in it — never inferred from missing dates.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 10a is Apollo Beach's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Apollo Beach's no killing freeze on record, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Apollo Beach
Each reading below is measured for Apollo Beach itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Winter hardiness
MeasuredApollo Beach sits in USDA hardiness zone 10a.
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 Apollo Beach is in
Apollo Beach sits in the Southern Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Apollo Beach's own centroid rather than borrowed from Hillsborough County.
What Grows in Apollo Beach
Every plant below cleared Apollo Beach's own zone 10a. Each card opens that plant's Florida profile. How we score.
What's on the federal record near Apollo Beach
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Apollo Beach. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- RUSKIN VEGETABLE CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- PLANTS OF RUSKIN DBA MUVBrownfields · 1900 ft
- BC SALVAGEToxics Release Inventory · 2600 ft
- 746 224 343342 NEAR GIBSONTON FLNitrate · 0.6 mi
- HILLSBOROUGH CNTY-FIRE DEPT #29Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- 7-ELEVEN STORE #37668Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- CIRCLE K #2704440Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- CHEVRON-APOLLO BEACHUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- TOUCH OF CLASS CLEANERSBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- CIRCLE K STORE #4440Brownfields · 0.9 mi
- CVS PHARMACY #3520Brownfields · 0.9 mi
- FDEP DSCP SITE D427 ID #299500418Brownfields · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Apollo Beach'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 Apollo Beach.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Apollo Beach
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Apollo Beach
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Apollo Beach, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 33 sites within ~10 miles of Apollo Beach. 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.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Apollo Beach
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 Apollo Beach average
Your land is one point inside Apollo Beach
Everything above resolves to Apollo Beach as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 13K 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 Apollo Beach Average
Apollo Beach Average
- ●USDA Zones 10a, averaged across Apollo Beach
- ●One soil character for all of Apollo Beach
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Apollo Beach's 10a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Apollo Beach
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Apollo Beach, Florida — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Apollo Beach averages can't show:
We read public map data around Apollo Beach — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Apollo Beach average
How we know this about Apollo Beach
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, with the labelled statewide window where none resolves; 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 Apollo Beach
Is it too late to plant in Apollo Beach?
No — Apollo Beach has no 28°F killing freeze in the 30-year station record, so the growing season is year-round and there is no last-frost date to wait for. Planting is paced by rainfall, heat and daylength instead of by frost: start heat-lovers any month, and time cool-season crops (lettuce, brassicas, peas) for the cooler, wetter half of the year or for higher ground. Succession sowing every few weeks works all year, so the limit is what you can keep watered and harvested, not the calendar.
When does frost risk typically end in Apollo Beach?
It doesn't — Apollo Beach records no 28°F killing freeze at all across the 1991–2020 station record, so there is no spring frost date to plant after. Cold still matters with elevation: the higher you garden, the cooler the nights, and a few tropical crops sulk below about 60°F even where they never freeze.
How long is the growing season in Apollo Beach?
Year-round — the 1991–2020 station record for Apollo Beach contains no 28°F killing freeze, so there is no season to measure between freezes. What paces planting instead is heat, rainfall and daylength: the hottest, wettest stretch is the hard part for cool-season crops, not winter. Elevation is the one real exception — the higher you garden, the colder the nights get.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Apollo Beach?
The federal record around Apollo Beach is a meaningful one — 413 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (191), 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.
Everything above is measured at Apollo Beach's scale — its 10a band and its no killing freeze on record. Your yard writes its own version of Apollo Beach'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 Apollo Beach’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Apollo Beach's own scale — the 12,595 acres it covers and 413 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Apollo Beach's own USDA hardiness band, zones 10aUSDA PHZM 2023
- No 28°F killing freeze in the 30-year station record covering Apollo Beach — a year-round growing seasonNOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- 413 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Apollo Beach, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Apollo Beach's boundary and the 12,595 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear Apollo Beach's hardiness zoneGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Apollo Beach's own centroid, the Southern Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Apollo Beach's 12,595 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Hillsborough County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Hillsborough County
- The growing challenges every Florida grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Florida
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Hillsborough County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Apollo Beach's 12,595 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Apollo Beach you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 12,595 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 Apollo Beach-wide figureread your own land →
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