Key Colony Beach, Florida, sits in USDA hardiness zone 11b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Crops well matched to these conditions include artichoke, starfruit, allspice, and cabbage — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Key Colony Beach, 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 Key Colony Beach 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 Key Colony Beach — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Key Colony Beach — the short answer
Key Colony Beach, Florida: USDA zone 11b, no 28°F killing freeze on record — the season is year-round, across 282 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 11b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Killing freeze
- None on record
- NOAA RCC ACIS 1991–2020, this town’s own record
- City area
- 282 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 11b is Key Colony Beach's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Key Colony Beach'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 Key Colony Beach
Each reading below is measured for Key Colony Beach itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Winter hardiness
MeasuredKey Colony Beach sits in USDA hardiness zone 11b.
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 Key Colony Beach is in
Key Colony Beach sits in the Southern Florida Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Tropical Wet Forests. That is read at Key Colony Beach's own centroid rather than borrowed from Monroe County.
What Grows in Key Colony Beach
Every plant below cleared Key Colony Beach's own zone 11b. Each card opens that plant's Florida profile. How we score.
What's on the federal record near Key Colony Beach
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Key Colony Beach. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BOATHOUSE MGMT CO LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- DAYS INN-MARATHON MARINA HOTELUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- GIANT OIL # 136Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- RALLY TIRE AUTO CENTERSBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- OUTTA THE BLUE MARINABrownfields · 0.7 mi
- REITMARINEBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- BP-SURFSIDEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- SCOTTYS LUMBER #94Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- BELLSOUTH TEL INC #M2616 VACAKEYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- CIRCLE K #2702370Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- SUNSHINE #384Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- TROPICAL REEF RESORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Key Colony Beach'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 Key Colony Beach.
Total Sites
86
within ~10 miles of Key Colony Beach
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Key Colony Beach
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Key Colony Beach
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Key Colony Beach, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 45 sites within ~10 miles of Key Colony Beach. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in Key Colony Beach
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 Key Colony Beach average
Your land is one point inside Key Colony Beach
Everything above resolves to Key Colony Beach as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 282 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 city 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 Key Colony Beach Average
Key Colony Beach Average
- ●USDA Zones 11b, averaged across Key Colony Beach
- ●One soil character for all of Key Colony Beach
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Key Colony Beach's 11b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Key Colony Beach
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Key Colony Beach, Florida — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Key Colony Beach averages can't show:
We read public map data around Key Colony Beach — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Key Colony Beach average
How we know this about Key Colony Beach
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Key Colony Beach
Is it too late to plant in Key Colony Beach?
No — Key Colony Beach 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 Key Colony Beach?
It doesn't — Key Colony Beach 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 Key Colony Beach?
Year-round — the 1991–2020 station record for Key Colony Beach 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 Key Colony Beach?
The federal record around Key Colony Beach shows 86 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (45), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
Everything above is measured at Key Colony Beach's scale — its 11b band and its no killing freeze on record. Your yard writes its own version of Key Colony Beach'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 Key Colony Beach’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Key Colony Beach's own scale — the 282 acres it covers and 86 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Key Colony Beach's own USDA hardiness band, zones 11bUSDA PHZM 2023
- No 28°F killing freeze in the 30-year station record covering Key Colony Beach — a year-round growing seasonNOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- 86 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Key Colony Beach, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Key Colony Beach's boundary and the 282 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear Key Colony Beach's hardiness zoneGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Key Colony Beach'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 Key Colony Beach's 282 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Monroe County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Monroe 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 Monroe County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Key Colony Beach's 282 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Key Colony Beach you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 282 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Key Colony Beach-wide figureread your own land →
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