Glades County, in 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.
A short list that earns its place here — okra, meyer lemon, california poppy, and artichoke — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Glades County lies within the Everglades Agricultural Area — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Glades County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Glades 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 Glades County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Glades County — the short answer
Glades County, Florida: USDA zone 10a, about 326 days between hard freezes, across 516K acres.
- USDA zone
- 10a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jan 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~326
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 516K 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 10a is Glades County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Glades County's 326-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Glades County
Across a year, Glades County accumulates about 8,638 growing degree days above 50°F, about 1,253 more than the middle Florida county — ahead of 57 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 0 hours below 45°F, 36 fewer 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 Glades County
Across Glades County, the ground is predominantly Spodosols, where Immokalee, Basinger, and Malabar are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a fine sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.5–5.5, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A/D soils.
Soil order
Spodosols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Hydric soils
52%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Glades County
The USDA soil survey maps 59% of Glades County as poorly drained — but another 17% drains differently: 15% very poorly drained, 1% somewhat poorly drained.
Immokalee is the most extensive named soil at 24% of mapped acres, then Basinger (12%) and Malabar (8%).
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 Glades County
Each reading below is measured for Glades 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 Glades County are poorly drained, in hydrologic group A/D — ground that sheds water slowly.
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
MeasuredTopsoil across Glades County runs about pH 4.5–5.5, 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
Season length
MeasuredGlades County runs about 326 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
Winter hardiness
MeasuredGlades County 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 Glades County is in
Glades County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Southern Coastal Plain (71%) and Southern Florida Coastal Plain (29%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Glades County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Glades County's own USDA zone 10a and its own 326-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 Glades 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 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Jan 22 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 14 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. In a climate this gentle, “too late” hardly applies — the question becomes which crops prefer the cooler months ahead.
What gets applied to farmland in Glades County
USGS estimates 23,579 lb of 2,4-d on Glades County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Triclopyr (21,334 lb) and Glyphosate (14,736 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 Glades County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Glades County — 111 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 5 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Glades 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 Glades County
Closest first, across Glades County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MOORE HAVEN WTPPFAS · 2.6 mi
- LAKEPORT GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- ARUBA CAMP RESORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.8 mi
- DIVISION OF FORESTRY-PALMDALE W CUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.1 mi
- CIRCLE K #7348Brownfields · 5.9 mi
- GRAHAM FARMS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.0 mi
- THE GRAHAM FARMSCAFO · 6.6 mi
- NATIVE GLIDE-CALOOSA TADDEUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.8 mi
- LUNDY PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.8 mi
- BESSIE ENTERPRISES LLC DBA SABAL PALM RV RESORT & CAMPGROUNDBrownfields · 7.3 mi
- AT&T COMMUNICATIONS-PALMDALE MICROWAVEUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.4 mi
- CIRCLE K #7348Underground Storage Tanks · 7.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Glades 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 Glades County.
Total Sites
111
across Glades County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
5 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Glades County
Severity Distribution
across Glades County
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
Check your specific parcel in Glades 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 Glades County average
Your land is one point inside Glades County
Everything above resolves to Glades County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 516K 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 Glades County Average
Glades County Average
- ●USDA Zones 10a, averaged across Glades County
- ●One soil character for all of Glades County
- ●Frost dates read at Glades County's scale: Jan 22 to Dec 14
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Glades County's 10a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Glades County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Glades County, Florida — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Glades County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Glades County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Glades County average
How we know this about Glades 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 Glades County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Glades County
When does frost risk typically end in Glades County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Glades County typically lands around Jan 22, 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 Feb 12.
How long is the growing season in Glades County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Glades County sees about 326 frost-free days — roughly Jan 22 through Dec 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 12 to Nov 30, about 291 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Glades County?
The federal record around Glades County shows 111 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (68), the nearest PFAS record about 2.6 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 Glades County's scale — its 10a band and its 326-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Glades 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 Glades County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Glades County's own scale — its own ~326-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 111 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Glades County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 10aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Glades County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~326-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Glades CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 111 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest PFAS record about 2.6 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Glades County's boundary and the 516,365 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 10a and a ~326-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Glades County spans, Southern Coastal Plain the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Glades 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 Glades County — the ~326 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 Glades County's 516,365 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 111 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 Glades Countyread your own land →