Gilchrist County, in Florida, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
These conditions suit artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Gilchrist County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Gilchrist County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Gilchrist County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Gilchrist County — the short answer
Gilchrist County, Florida: USDA zone 9a, about 298 days between hard freezes, across 224K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~298
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 224K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 28°F normals: light frosts run a few weeks past them, and tender transplants usually wait 2–3 weeks after the last hard freeze.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 9a is Gilchrist County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Gilchrist County's 298-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Gilchrist County
Across a year, Gilchrist County accumulates about 6,992 growing degree days above 50°F, about 393 fewer than the middle Florida county — ahead of 27 of Florida’s 67 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Winter banks about 270 hours below 45°F, 234 more than the Florida middle of 36. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Gilchrist County
Across Gilchrist County, the ground is predominantly Entisols, where Penney, Otela, and Ridgewood are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally excessively drained with a fine sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.8–5.2, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A soils.
Soil order
Entisols
Drainage
Excessively drained
Prime farmland
2%
Hydric soils
17%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Gilchrist County
The USDA soil survey maps 35% of Gilchrist County as excessively drained — but another 63% drains differently: 26% moderately well drained, 13% somewhat poorly drained.
Penney is the most extensive named soil at 29% of mapped acres, then Otela (9%) and Ridgewood (7%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Gilchrist County
Each reading below is measured for Gilchrist County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Gilchrist County are excessively drained, in hydrologic group A — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Gilchrist County runs about pH 4.8–5.2, on the acidic side.
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
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 17% of Gilchrist County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredGilchrist County runs about 298 days between hard freezes — close to year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
The kind of country Gilchrist County is in
Gilchrist County sits in the Southern Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Gilchrist County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Gilchrist County's own USDA zone 9a and its own 298-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Florida profile.
Is it too late to plant in Gilchrist County?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 11 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 6 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the calendar nearly circles: cool-season crops take the winter shift, and the next window is always close.
Documented around Gilchrist County
- monarch butterfly7 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Gilchrist County
USGS estimates 8,686 lb of 2,4-d on Gilchrist County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (8,644 lb) and Tebuconazole (5,486 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Gilchrist County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Gilchrist County — 167 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Toxics Release Inventory facility. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Gilchrist County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Gilchrist County
Closest first, across Gilchrist County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ITT Rayonier-WACCA MW #10FNitrate · 1.3 mi
- ACE HARDWAREBrownfields · 2.4 mi
- -091606001.Nitrate · 2.8 mi
- 943244310 09S16E07 212 SITE 1 USGSNitrate · 2.9 mi
- -091520002.Nitrate · 3.3 mi
- NORTH FL HOLSTEINS LCUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- -081531001.Nitrate · 3.4 mi
- NORTH FL HOLSTEINS UNITED FUELS CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- NORTH FLORIDA HOLSTEINSCAFO · 3.5 mi
- GRASSY BELL DAIRYCAFO · 3.5 mi
- TALMADGE POLKUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- GILCHRIST COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD OPERATIONS CENTERBrownfields · 3.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Gilchrist County'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 Gilchrist County.
Total Sites
167
across Gilchrist County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
across Gilchrist County
Severity Distribution
across Gilchrist County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Gilchrist County, two things run higher than the national average across Gilchrist County — CAFO (6 sites) and Nitrate (68 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Gilchrist County
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 Gilchrist County average
Your land is one point inside Gilchrist County
Everything above resolves to Gilchrist County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 224K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Gilchrist County Average
Gilchrist County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Gilchrist County
- ●One soil character for all of Gilchrist County
- ●Frost dates read at Gilchrist County's scale: Feb 11 to Dec 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Gilchrist County's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Gilchrist County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Gilchrist County, Florida — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Gilchrist County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Gilchrist County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Gilchrist County average
How we know this about Gilchrist County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Gilchrist County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Gilchrist County
When does frost risk typically end in Gilchrist County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Gilchrist County typically lands around Feb 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — earlier than the light-frost dates most charts quote. That marks the hard freeze, not the last light frost — lighter frosts keep biting past it, which is why tender transplants here wait until about Mar 4.
How long is the growing season in Gilchrist County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Gilchrist County sees about 298 frost-free days — roughly Feb 11 through Dec 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 4 to Nov 22, about 263 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Gilchrist County?
The federal record around Gilchrist County shows 167 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (76), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.3 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 Gilchrist County's scale — its 9a band and its 298-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Gilchrist County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Florida's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Gilchrist County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Gilchrist County's own scale — its own ~298-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 167 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Gilchrist County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Gilchrist County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~298-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Gilchrist CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 167 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 1.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Gilchrist County's boundary and the 223,805 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~298-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Gilchrist County sitting wholly inside the Southern Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Gilchrist County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Gilchrist County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Florida grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Florida
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Gilchrist County — the ~298 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Gilchrist County's 223,805 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 167 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Gilchrist Countyread your own land →