Brownsville, Florida, sits in USDA hardiness zone 11a — 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 Brownsville, 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 Brownsville 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 Brownsville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Brownsville — the short answer
Brownsville, Florida: USDA zone 11a, no 28°F killing freeze on record — the season is year-round, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 11a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Killing freeze
- None on record
- NOAA RCC ACIS 1991–2020, this town’s own record
- Town area
- 1K 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 11a is Brownsville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Brownsville'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 Brownsville
Each reading below is measured for Brownsville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Winter hardiness
MeasuredBrownsville sits in USDA hardiness zone 11a.
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 Brownsville is in
Brownsville sits in the Southern Florida Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Tropical Wet Forests. That is read at Brownsville's own centroid rather than borrowed from Miami-Dade County.
What Grows in Brownsville
Every plant below cleared Brownsville's own zone 11a. Each card opens that plant's Florida profile. How we score.
What's on the federal record near Brownsville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Brownsville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DISCOUNT AUTO PARTS #625Underground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- Q APPLIANCEUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- 29TH TRUCK STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- ALBERCAR U-GASUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- DADE CNTY-JOSEPH CALEB CTRUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- PALMERS ROOF-RITE CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- DADE COUNTY LORAH PARK ELEMENTARYBrownfields · 1900 ft
- ROBERTS PAINT & BODY SHOP REP INCBrownfields · 2000 ft
- MEIRELES TRUCK SALES INCBrownfields · 2100 ft
- LOS DOS HERMONDS AUTO BODYBrownfields · 2100 ft
- DADE COUNTY BROWNSVILLE JR HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 2200 ft
- E & C SERVICE STATION MACMILLANUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Brownsville'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 Brownsville.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Brownsville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Brownsville
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 Brownsville
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 Brownsville average
Your land is one point inside Brownsville
Everything above resolves to Brownsville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Brownsville Average
Brownsville Average
- ●USDA Zones 11a, averaged across Brownsville
- ●One soil character for all of Brownsville
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Brownsville's 11a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Brownsville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Brownsville, Florida — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Brownsville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Brownsville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Brownsville average
How we know this about Brownsville
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 Brownsville
Is it too late to plant in Brownsville?
No — Brownsville 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 Brownsville?
It doesn't — Brownsville 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 Brownsville?
Year-round — the 1991–2020 station record for Brownsville 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 Brownsville?
The federal record around Brownsville runs heavier than most — 5,434 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (2,655), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
Everything above is measured at Brownsville's scale — its 11a band and its no killing freeze on record. Your yard writes its own version of Brownsville'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 Brownsville’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Brownsville's own scale — the 1,459 acres it covers and 5,434 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Brownsville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 11aUSDA PHZM 2023
- No 28°F killing freeze in the 30-year station record covering Brownsville — a year-round growing seasonNOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- 5,434 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Brownsville, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Brownsville's boundary and the 1,459 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear Brownsville's hardiness zoneGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Brownsville'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 Brownsville's 1,459 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Miami-Dade County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Miami-Dade 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 Miami-Dade County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Brownsville's 1,459 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Brownsville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,459 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Brownsville-wide figureread your own land →
More in Florida
Wider growing context
What grows across FloridaBrownsville sits outside our named growing regions, so Florida as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides