Gulf County, in Florida, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Crops well matched to these conditions include okra, meyer lemon, california poppy, and artichoke — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Gulf County lies within the Florida Panhandle and the Gulf Coast — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Gulf County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Gulf 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 Gulf County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Gulf County — the short answer
Gulf County, Florida: USDA zone 9b, about 314 days between hard freezes, across 354K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~314
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 354K 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 9b is Gulf County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Gulf County's 314-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Gulf County
Across a year, Gulf County accumulates about 6,725 growing degree days above 50°F, about 660 fewer than the middle Florida county — ahead of 17 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 162 hours below 45°F, 126 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 Gulf County
Across Gulf County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Plummer, Pelham, and Brickyard are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a fine sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.8–5.3, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A/D soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
1%
Hydric soils
76%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Gulf County
The USDA soil survey maps 44% of Gulf County as poorly drained — but another 52% drains differently: 37% very poorly drained, 11% somewhat poorly drained.
Plummer is the most extensive named soil at 11% of mapped acres, then Pelham (11%) and Brickyard (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 Gulf County
Each reading below is measured for Gulf 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 Gulf 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 Gulf County runs about pH 4.8–5.3, 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
MeasuredGulf County runs about 314 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
MeasuredGulf County sits in USDA hardiness zone 9b.
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 Gulf County is in
Gulf 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 Gulf County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Gulf County's own USDA zone 9b and its own 314-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 Gulf County?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 12 — 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.
Documented around Gulf County
- monarch butterfly4 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Gulf County
USGS estimates 4,085 lb of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s on Gulf County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor-s (4,054 lb) and 2,4-d (1,761 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 Gulf County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Gulf County — 131 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Gulf County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Gulf County
Closest first, across Gulf County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ST JOSEPH LAND & DEVELOPMENT COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- TOWNSEND MARINEBrownfields · 1.7 mi
- EMERALD WASTE SERVICESBrownfields · 1.8 mi
- GULF COUNTY SHIPBUILDING INCBrownfields · 1.9 mi
- PREMIER CHEMICALS, LLCToxics Release Inventory · 2.2 mi
- GULF DIESEL REPAIR LLCBrownfields · 2.5 mi
- LEE ONE STOP LLCBrownfields · 2.6 mi
- WOOD'S FISHERIESBrownfields · 2.8 mi
- PORT ST JOE CITY-SWTPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- RAFFIELD FISHERIESUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- MR CHEAP BUTTSUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- BP-SKIP'SUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Gulf 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 Gulf County.
Total Sites
131
across Gulf County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Gulf County
Severity Distribution
across Gulf County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Gulf County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 86 sites across Gulf County. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Gulf 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 Gulf County average
Your land is one point inside Gulf County
Everything above resolves to Gulf County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 354K 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 Gulf County Average
Gulf County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9b, averaged across Gulf County
- ●One soil character for all of Gulf County
- ●Frost dates read at Gulf County's scale: Feb 1 to Dec 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Gulf County's 9b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Gulf County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Gulf County, Florida — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Gulf County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Gulf County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Gulf County average
How we know this about Gulf 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 Gulf County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Gulf County
When does frost risk typically end in Gulf County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Gulf County typically lands around Feb 1, 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 22.
How long is the growing season in Gulf County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Gulf County sees about 314 frost-free days — roughly Feb 1 through Dec 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 22 to Nov 28, about 279 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Gulf County?
The federal record around Gulf County is a meaningful one — 131 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (86), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.1 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 Gulf County's scale — its 9b band and its 314-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Gulf 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 Gulf County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Gulf County's own scale — its own ~314-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 131 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Gulf County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Gulf County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~314-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Gulf CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 131 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.1 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Gulf County's boundary and the 354,218 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9b and a ~314-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Gulf County sitting wholly inside the Southern Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Gulf County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Gulf 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 Gulf County — the ~314 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 Gulf County's 354,218 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 131 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 Gulf Countyread your own land →