North Key Largo, 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.
On paper, artichoke, starfruit, allspice, and cabbage all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in North 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 North 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 North Key Largo — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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North Key Largo — the short answer
North Key Largo, Florida: USDA zone 11a, no 28°F killing freeze on record — the season is year-round, across 12K 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
- 12K 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 North Key Largo's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against North 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 North Key Largo
Each reading below is measured for North Key Largo itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Winter hardiness
MeasuredNorth Key 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 North Key Largo is in
North Key Largo sits in the Southern Florida Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Tropical Wet Forests. That is read at North Key Largo's own centroid rather than borrowed from Monroe County.
What Grows in North Key Largo
Every plant below cleared North Key Largo's own zone 11a. Each card opens that plant's Florida profile. How we score.
What's on the federal record near North Key Largo
Closest first, within ~10 miles of North Key Largo. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MO - 130Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- MO - 163Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- MO - 164Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- MO - 162Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- MO - 166Nitrate · 2.8 mi
- KEY LARGO ANGLERS CLUBUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- BELLSOUTH TEL INC #M2647Underground Storage Tanks · 4.2 mi
- SHELL-OCEAN REEF CLUBUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- OCEAN REEF CLUB MARINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- MARINEMAXBrownfields · 4.3 mi
- OCEAN REEF CLUB-AIRPORT FUEL TANKUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
- OCEAN REEF CLUB INCBrownfields · 4.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from North 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 North Key Largo.
Total Sites
68
within ~10 miles of North Key Largo
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
8 brownfield sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of North Key Largo
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of North Key Largo
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around North Key Largo, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 40 sites within ~10 miles of North Key Largo. 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 North 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 North Key Largo average
Your land is one point inside North Key Largo
Everything above resolves to North Key Largo as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 12K 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 North Key Largo Average
North Key Largo Average
- ●USDA Zones 11a, averaged across North Key Largo
- ●One soil character for all of North Key Largo
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not North Key Largo's 11a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in North Key Largo
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in North Key Largo, Florida — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that North Key Largo averages can't show:
We read public map data around North Key Largo — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the North Key Largo average
How we know this about North 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 North Key Largo
Is it too late to plant in North Key Largo?
No — North 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 North Key Largo?
It doesn't — North 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 North Key Largo?
Year-round — the 1991–2020 station record for North 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 North Key Largo?
The federal record around North Key Largo shows 68 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (40), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.8 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 North Key Largo's scale — its 11a band and its no killing freeze on record. Your yard writes its own version of North 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 North Key Largo’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at North Key Largo's own scale — the 11,893 acres it covers and 68 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- North Key Largo's own USDA hardiness band, zones 11aUSDA PHZM 2023
- No 28°F killing freeze in the 30-year station record covering North Key Largo — a year-round growing seasonNOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- 68 documented contamination sites on the federal record near North Key Largo, the closest Nitrate record about 0.8 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- North Key Largo's boundary and the 11,893 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear North Key Largo's hardiness zoneGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at North 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 North Key Largo's 11,893 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 North Key Largo's 11,893 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of North 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 11,893 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.8 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 North Key Largo-wide figureread your own land →
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