Key Largo, Florida, sits in USDA hardiness zone 11a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Well-matched crops include artichoke, starfruit, allspice, and cabbage, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Key Largo, 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 Largo 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 Largo — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Key Largo — the short answer
Key Largo, Florida: USDA zone 11a, no 28°F killing freeze on record — the season is year-round, across 8K 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
- 8K 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 Key Largo's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Key Largo'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 Largo
Each reading below is measured for Key Largo itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Winter hardiness
MeasuredKey Largo 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 Key Largo is in
Key Largo sits in the Southern Florida Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Tropical Wet Forests. That is read at Key Largo's own centroid rather than borrowed from Monroe County.
What Grows in Key Largo
Every plant below cleared Key Largo's own zone 11a. Each card opens that plant's Florida profile. How we score.
What's on the federal record near Key Largo
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Key Largo. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CHARLIES GARAGEBrownfields · 1000 ft
- CIRCLE K #2702375Underground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- CIRCLE K #2375Brownfields · 1200 ft
- BELLSOUTH TEL INC #M2638Underground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- STATE PARK-JOHN PENNEKAMPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- MD CUSTOM CYCLES INCBrownfields · 1900 ft
- TOM THUMB FOOD STORE #206Underground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- PUBLIX SUPER MARKET #1813Brownfields · 0.8 mi
- WHEATONS SERVICE CENTERBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- KEY LARGO WWTPBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- KEY LARGO MARINE TOURSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- MARINE RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATIONBrownfields · 1.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Key Largo'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 Largo.
Total Sites
99
within ~10 miles of Key Largo
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Key Largo
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Key Largo
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 Key Largo
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 Largo average
Your land is one point inside Key Largo
Everything above resolves to Key Largo as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 8K 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 Key Largo Average
Key Largo Average
- ●USDA Zones 11a, averaged across Key Largo
- ●One soil character for all of Key Largo
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Key Largo's 11a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Key Largo
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Key Largo, Florida — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Key Largo averages can't show:
We read public map data around Key Largo — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Key Largo average
How we know this about Key Largo
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 Key Largo
Is it too late to plant in Key Largo?
No — Key Largo 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 Largo?
It doesn't — Key Largo 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 Largo?
Year-round — the 1991–2020 station record for Key Largo 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 Largo?
The federal record around Key Largo shows 99 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (41), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.2 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 Largo's scale — its 11a band and its no killing freeze on record. Your yard writes its own version of Key Largo'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 Largo’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Key Largo's own scale — the 7,709 acres it covers and 99 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Key Largo's own USDA hardiness band, zones 11aUSDA PHZM 2023
- No 28°F killing freeze in the 30-year station record covering Key Largo — a year-round growing seasonNOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- 99 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Key Largo, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Key Largo's boundary and the 7,709 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear Key Largo's hardiness zoneGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Key Largo'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 Largo's 7,709 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 Largo's 7,709 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Key Largo you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 7,709 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 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 Largo-wide figureread your own land →