Big Pine Key, Florida, sits in USDA hardiness zone 11b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
The conditions favor artichoke, starfruit, allspice, and cabbage, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Big Pine Key, 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 Big Pine Key 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 Big Pine Key — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Big Pine Key — the short answer
Big Pine Key, Florida: USDA zone 11b, no 28°F killing freeze on record — the season is year-round, across 7K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 11b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Killing freeze
- None on record
- NOAA RCC ACIS 1991–2020, this town’s own record
- Town area
- 7K 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 11b is Big Pine Key's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Big Pine Key'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 Big Pine Key
Each reading below is measured for Big Pine Key itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Winter hardiness
MeasuredBig Pine Key sits in USDA hardiness zone 11b.
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 Big Pine Key is in
Big Pine Key sits in the Southern Florida Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Tropical Wet Forests. That is read at Big Pine Key's own centroid rather than borrowed from Monroe County.
What Grows in Big Pine Key
Every plant below cleared Big Pine Key's own zone 11b. Each card opens that plant's Florida profile. How we score.
What's on the federal record near Big Pine Key
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Big Pine Key. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MO - 2Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- WINN-DIXIE #358Brownfields · 0.9 mi
- FLORIDA KEYS AQUEDUCT AUTHORITY CONSTRUCTION SITEBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- WALGREENS #07936Brownfields · 1.0 mi
- CVS PHARMACY #3626Brownfields · 1.1 mi
- SOFT WELL FEC RR BIG PINE KEYNitrate · 1.1 mi
- BIG PINE GAS & FOOD INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- HABITAT FOR HUMANITY- FRMR D&J INDUSTRIESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- GOLD COAST BEVERAGE DISTRIBUTORSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- TROPICAL AUTOBODY & COLLISIONBrownfields · 1.2 mi
- MARSHALLS AUTOMOTIVE INCBrownfields · 1.2 mi
- SKEETERS MARINE REPAIRBrownfields · 1.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Big Pine Key'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 Big Pine Key.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Big Pine Key
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Big Pine Key
Highest-Severity Sites
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.
Check your specific parcel in Big Pine Key
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 Big Pine Key average
Your land is one point inside Big Pine Key
Everything above resolves to Big Pine Key as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 7K 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 Big Pine Key Average
Big Pine Key Average
- ●USDA Zones 11b, averaged across Big Pine Key
- ●One soil character for all of Big Pine Key
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Big Pine Key's 11b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Big Pine Key
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Big Pine Key, Florida — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Big Pine Key averages can't show:
We read public map data around Big Pine Key — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Big Pine Key average
How we know this about Big Pine Key
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 Big Pine Key
Is it too late to plant in Big Pine Key?
No — Big Pine Key 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 Big Pine Key?
It doesn't — Big Pine Key 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 Big Pine Key?
Year-round — the 1991–2020 station record for Big Pine Key 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 Big Pine Key?
The federal record around Big Pine Key shows 58 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (27), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.7 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
Everything above is measured at Big Pine Key's scale — its 11b band and its no killing freeze on record. Your yard writes its own version of Big Pine Key'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 Big Pine Key’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Big Pine Key's own scale — the 6,531 acres it covers and 58 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Big Pine Key's own USDA hardiness band, zones 11bUSDA PHZM 2023
- No 28°F killing freeze in the 30-year station record covering Big Pine Key — a year-round growing seasonNOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- 58 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Big Pine Key, the closest Nitrate record about 0.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Big Pine Key's boundary and the 6,531 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear Big Pine Key's hardiness zoneGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Big Pine Key's own centroid, the Southern Florida Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Big Pine Key's 6,531 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Monroe County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Monroe 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 Monroe County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Big Pine Key's 6,531 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Big Pine Key you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 6,531 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.7 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 Big Pine Key-wide figureread your own land →
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