St. Lucie County, in Florida, sits in USDA hardiness zone 10a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Among the crops suited to this profile: okra, meyer lemon, california poppy, and artichoke. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
St. Lucie County lies within the Treasure Coast — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
St. Lucie County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across St. Lucie 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 St. Lucie County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
St. Lucie County — the short answer
St. Lucie County, Florida: USDA zone 10a, about 329 days between hard freezes, across 366K acres.
- USDA zone
- 10a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jan 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~329
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 366K 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 St. Lucie County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against St. Lucie County's 329-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in St. Lucie County
Across a year, St. Lucie County accumulates about 8,531 growing degree days above 50°F, about 1,146 more than the middle Florida county — ahead of 54 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 St. Lucie County
Across St. Lucie County, the ground is predominantly Spodosols, where Pineda, Riviera, and Winder are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.3–6.1, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C/D soils.
Soil order
Spodosols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Hydric soils
47%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across St. Lucie County
The USDA soil survey maps 72% of St. Lucie County as poorly drained — but another 19% drains differently: 14% very poorly drained, 3% somewhat poorly drained.
Pineda is the most extensive named soil at 14% of mapped acres, then Riviera (12%) and Winder (12%).
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 St. Lucie County
Each reading below is measured for St. Lucie 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 St. Lucie County are poorly drained, in hydrologic group C/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 St. Lucie County runs about pH 5.3–6.1, 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
MeasuredSt. Lucie County runs about 329 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
MeasuredSt. Lucie 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 St. Lucie County is in
St. Lucie 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 St. Lucie County
We scored all 1,086 plants against St. Lucie County's own USDA zone 10a and its own 329-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 St. Lucie 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 19 (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. Here the calendar nearly circles: cool-season crops take the winter shift, and the next window is always close.
Documented around St. Lucie County
- monarch butterfly190 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in St. Lucie County
USGS estimates 127,857 lb of Glyphosate on St. Lucie County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (25,549 lb) and Chlorpyrifos (20,674 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 St. Lucie County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across St. Lucie County — 1,010 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 3 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 St. Lucie 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 St. Lucie County
Closest first, across St. Lucie County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PALM INDIAN INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- PG - 10Nitrate · 1.4 mi
- FL POWER & LIGHT CO-MIDWAY SUBUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- COUNTRY STORE BAR-B-QUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- FPL MIDWAY ABrownfields · 1.7 mi
- NIKI FOOD STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- FL DEPT OF TRANSPORTATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- CIRCLE H CITRUSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- WEST SHINN RD GROVEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- SOFLSUS2-22 ST. LUCIE CO 90' WELLNitrate · 2.4 mi
- VALERO BAYSHOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- STL- 131ANitrate · 2.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from St. Lucie 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 St. Lucie County.
Total Sites
1,010
across St. Lucie County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across St. Lucie County
Severity Distribution
across St. Lucie County
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 St. Lucie 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 St. Lucie County average
Your land is one point inside St. Lucie County
Everything above resolves to St. Lucie County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 366K 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 St. Lucie County Average
St. Lucie County Average
- ●USDA Zones 10a, averaged across St. Lucie County
- ●One soil character for all of St. Lucie County
- ●Frost dates read at St. Lucie County's scale: Jan 19 to Dec 14
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not St. Lucie County's 10a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in St. Lucie County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in St. Lucie County, Florida — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that St. Lucie County averages can't show:
We read public map data around St. Lucie County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the St. Lucie County average
How we know this about St. Lucie 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 St. Lucie County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about St. Lucie County
When does frost risk typically end in St. Lucie County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in St. Lucie County typically lands around Jan 19, 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 9.
How long is the growing season in St. Lucie County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, St. Lucie County sees about 329 frost-free days — roughly Jan 19 through Dec 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 9 to Nov 30, about 294 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in St. Lucie County?
The federal record around St. Lucie County is a meaningful one — 1,010 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (531), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 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 St. Lucie County's scale — its 10a band and its 329-day season. Your yard writes its own version of St. Lucie 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 St. Lucie County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at St. Lucie County's own scale — its own ~329-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 1,010 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- St. Lucie County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 10aUSDA PHZM 2023
- St. Lucie County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~329-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in St. Lucie CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 1,010 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 miles outFederal environmental registers
- St. Lucie County's boundary and the 365,999 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 10a and a ~329-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- St. Lucie County sitting wholly inside the Southern Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in St. Lucie County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto St. Lucie 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 St. Lucie County — the ~329 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 St. Lucie County's 365,999 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 1,010 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 St. Lucie Countyread your own land →