Homestead Base, Florida, sits in USDA hardiness zone 11a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Growers here do well with artichoke, starfruit, allspice, and cabbage — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Homestead Base, 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 Homestead Base 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 Homestead Base — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Homestead Base — the short answer
Homestead Base, Florida: USDA zone 11a, no 28°F killing freeze on record — the season is year-round, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 11a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Killing freeze
- None on record
- NOAA RCC ACIS 1991–2020, this town’s own record
- Town area
- 3K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. The year-round finding is measured — a 30-year record with no 28°F killing freeze in it — never inferred from missing dates.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 11a is Homestead Base's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Homestead Base's no killing freeze on record, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Homestead Base
Each reading below is measured for Homestead Base itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Winter hardiness
MeasuredHomestead Base sits in USDA hardiness zone 11a.
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 Homestead Base is in
Homestead Base sits in the Southern Florida Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Tropical Wet Forests. That is read at Homestead Base's own centroid rather than borrowed from Miami-Dade County.
What Grows in Homestead Base
Every plant below cleared Homestead Base's own zone 11a. Each card opens that plant's Florida profile. How we score.
What's on the federal record near Homestead Base
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Homestead Base. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- G -1023Nitrate · 2200 ft
- USAF - HOMESTEAD AIR RESERVE BASESuperfund · 2600 ft
- USAF - HOMESTEAD AIR RESERVE BASEBrownfields · 2600 ft
- G -1270Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- Groundwater Well at Waldin WestNitrate · 0.5 mi
- SI BON CLEANERS & TAILORING CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- FPL HOMESTEAD SUBSTATIONBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- CUSTOMS & BORDER PROTECTION MIAMI AIR & MARINE BRANCHBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- EAST GLADE GROWERSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- FLORIDA DMA FLARNG HQ50THASGBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- G -3316Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- G -3316CNitrate · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Homestead Base'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 Homestead Base.
Total Sites
1,003
within ~10 miles of Homestead Base
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Homestead Base
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Homestead Base
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Homestead Base, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 314 sites within ~10 miles of Homestead Base. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Homestead Base
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 Homestead Base average
Your land is one point inside Homestead Base
Everything above resolves to Homestead Base as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Homestead Base Average
Homestead Base Average
- ●USDA Zones 11a, averaged across Homestead Base
- ●One soil character for all of Homestead Base
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Homestead Base's 11a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Homestead Base
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Homestead Base, Florida — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Homestead Base averages can't show:
We read public map data around Homestead Base — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Homestead Base average
How we know this about Homestead Base
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, with the labelled statewide window where none resolves; 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 Homestead Base
Is it too late to plant in Homestead Base?
No — Homestead Base has no 28°F killing freeze in the 30-year station record, so the growing season is year-round and there is no last-frost date to wait for. Planting is paced by rainfall, heat and daylength instead of by frost: start heat-lovers any month, and time cool-season crops (lettuce, brassicas, peas) for the cooler, wetter half of the year or for higher ground. Succession sowing every few weeks works all year, so the limit is what you can keep watered and harvested, not the calendar.
When does frost risk typically end in Homestead Base?
It doesn't — Homestead Base records no 28°F killing freeze at all across the 1991–2020 station record, so there is no spring frost date to plant after. Cold still matters with elevation: the higher you garden, the cooler the nights, and a few tropical crops sulk below about 60°F even where they never freeze.
How long is the growing season in Homestead Base?
Year-round — the 1991–2020 station record for Homestead Base contains no 28°F killing freeze, so there is no season to measure between freezes. What paces planting instead is heat, rainfall and daylength: the hottest, wettest stretch is the hard part for cool-season crops, not winter. Elevation is the one real exception — the higher you garden, the colder the nights get.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Homestead Base?
The federal record around Homestead Base is a meaningful one — 1,003 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (432), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.4 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 Homestead Base's scale — its 11a band and its no killing freeze on record. Your yard writes its own version of Homestead Base'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 Homestead Base’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Homestead Base's own scale — the 2,716 acres it covers and 1,003 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Homestead Base's own USDA hardiness band, zones 11aUSDA PHZM 2023
- No 28°F killing freeze in the 30-year station record covering Homestead Base — a year-round growing seasonNOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- 1,003 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Homestead Base, the closest Nitrate record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Homestead Base's boundary and the 2,716 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear Homestead Base's hardiness zoneGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Homestead Base's own centroid, the Southern Florida Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Homestead Base's 2,716 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Miami-Dade County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Miami-Dade 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 Miami-Dade County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Homestead Base's 2,716 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Homestead Base you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,716 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.4 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 Homestead Base-wide figureread your own land →
More in Florida
Wider growing context
What grows across FloridaHomestead Base sits outside our named growing regions, so Florida as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides