Levy County, in Florida, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Crops well matched to these conditions include artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Levy County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Levy 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 Levy County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Levy County — the short answer
Levy County, Florida: USDA zone 9a, about 310 days between hard freezes, across 716K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~310
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 716K 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 Levy County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Levy County's 310-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Levy County
Across a year, Levy County accumulates about 7,214 growing degree days above 50°F, about 171 fewer than the middle Florida county — ahead of 30 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 124 hours below 45°F, 88 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 Levy County
Across Levy County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Candler, Smyrna, and Otela are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a fine sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.3–6.5, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A/D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
0%
Hydric soils
42%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Levy County
The USDA soil survey maps 34% of Levy County as poorly drained — but another 59% drains differently: 19% very poorly drained, 14% moderately well drained.
Candler is the most extensive named soil at 13% of mapped acres, then Smyrna (9%) and Otela (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 Levy County
Each reading below is measured for Levy 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 Levy 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 Levy County runs about pH 5.3–6.5, 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
MeasuredLevy County runs about 310 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
MeasuredLevy County sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a.
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 Levy County is in
Levy 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 Levy County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Levy County's own USDA zone 9a and its own 310-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 Levy 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 6; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 3 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 10 — 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 Levy County
- monarch butterfly67 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Levy County
USGS estimates 17,059 lb of 2,4-d on Levy County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (9,623 lb) and Tebuconazole (8,647 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 Levy County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Levy County — 276 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 Levy 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 Levy County
Closest first, across Levy County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SCRAMBLETOWN COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- HODGE PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.9 mi
- S C CLYATTUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.1 mi
- BJS QUICK STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.3 mi
- QUIK STOP-HERSHELUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.3 mi
- MARTINS COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.3 mi
- COUCHS STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.6 mi
- BP-ARCHERUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.7 mi
- FRANK COUCHUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.6 mi
- JOCO OF GULF HAMMOCKUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.6 mi
- PETRO AMERICAUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.6 mi
- DIVISION OF FORESTRY-CEDAR KEYUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Levy 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 Levy County.
Total Sites
276
across Levy County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Levy County
Severity Distribution
across Levy County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Levy County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 170 sites across Levy County. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Levy 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 Levy County average
Your land is one point inside Levy County
Everything above resolves to Levy County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 716K 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 Levy County Average
Levy County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Levy County
- ●One soil character for all of Levy County
- ●Frost dates read at Levy County's scale: Feb 3 to Dec 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Levy County's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Levy County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Levy County, Florida — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Levy County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Levy County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Levy County average
How we know this about Levy 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 Levy County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Levy County
When does frost risk typically end in Levy County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Levy County typically lands around Feb 3, 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 24.
How long is the growing season in Levy County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Levy County sees about 310 frost-free days — roughly Feb 3 through Dec 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 24 to Nov 26, about 275 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Levy County?
The federal record around Levy County is a meaningful one — 276 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (170), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 4.1 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 Levy County's scale — its 9a band and its 310-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Levy 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 Levy County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Levy County's own scale — its own ~310-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 276 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Levy County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Levy County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~310-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Levy CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 276 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 4.1 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Levy County's boundary and the 715,685 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~310-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Levy County sitting wholly inside the Southern Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Levy County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Levy 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 Levy County — the ~310 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 Levy County's 715,685 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 276 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 Levy Countyread your own land →