Fruitville, 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.
Reliable performers under these conditions include okra, meyer lemon, california poppy, and artichoke; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Fruitville, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Fruitville lot. 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 Fruitville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Fruitville — the short answer
Fruitville, Florida: USDA zone 10a, about 340 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 10a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jan 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~340
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 4K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 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 Fruitville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Fruitville's 340-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Fruitville
Each reading below is measured for Fruitville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFruitville runs about 340 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
MeasuredFruitville 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 Fruitville is in
Fruitville sits in the Southern Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Fruitville's own centroid rather than borrowed from Sarasota County.
What Grows in Fruitville
Every plant below cleared Fruitville's own zone 10a and its 340-day season. Each card opens that plant's Florida profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Fruitville?
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 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 28 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
What's on the federal record near Fruitville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Fruitville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- OSPREY COMMERCE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- LONGBOAT KEY FIRE DEPT #2Underground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- WINN DIXIE STORE #657Brownfields · 1400 ft
- TARGET STORE T0799Brownfields · 1700 ft
- FRUITVILLE PAINT & BODY SHOPBrownfields · 1900 ft
- PALMS MEMORIAL PARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- MEASEL & SONS INC G CUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- PUBLIX SUPER MARKET #148Brownfields · 2000 ft
- RACETRAC PETROLEUM #126Underground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- CVS PHARMACY #16250Brownfields · 2100 ft
- CVS PHARMACY #3532Brownfields · 2100 ft
- FRUITVILLE SHELLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Fruitville'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 Fruitville.
Total Sites
1,427
within ~10 miles of Fruitville
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
8 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Fruitville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Fruitville
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 Fruitville
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 Fruitville average
Your land is one point inside Fruitville
Everything above resolves to Fruitville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 town 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 local average.
Your Lot vs the Fruitville Average
Fruitville Average
- ●USDA Zones 10a, averaged across Fruitville
- ●One soil character for all of Fruitville
- ●Frost dates read at Fruitville's scale: Jan 22 to Dec 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Fruitville's 10a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Fruitville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Fruitville, Florida — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Fruitville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Fruitville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Fruitville average
How we know this about Fruitville
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Fruitville’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Fruitville
When does frost risk typically end in Fruitville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Fruitville 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.
When is the first frost in Fruitville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Fruitville typically arrives around Dec 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Dec 14, so the watching starts about Nov 28 — about 340 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Fruitville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Fruitville sees about 340 frost-free days — roughly Jan 22 through Dec 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 12 to Dec 14, about 305 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Fruitville?
The federal record around Fruitville is a meaningful one — 1,427 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (667), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Fruitville?
From about Nov 28 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Dec 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Dec 28. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Fruitville's scale — its 10a band and its 340-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Fruitville's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Fruitville’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Fruitville's own scale — its own ~340-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,367 acres it covers and 1,427 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Fruitville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 10aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Fruitville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Jan 22 and Dec 28 and the ~340-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,427 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Fruitville, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Fruitville's boundary and the 4,367 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 10a and a ~340-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Fruitville's own centroid, the Southern Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Fruitville's 4,367 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Sarasota County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Sarasota County
- The growing challenges every Florida grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Florida
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Sarasota County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Fruitville's 4,367 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Fruitville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,367 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Fruitville-wide figureread your own land →