Siesta Key, Florida, sits in USDA hardiness zone 10a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
A short list that earns its place here — artichoke, meyer lemon, california poppy, and cabbage — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Siesta Key, 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 Siesta Key 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 Siesta Key — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Siesta Key — the short answer
Siesta Key, Florida: USDA zone 10a, no 28°F killing freeze on record — the season is year-round, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 10a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Killing freeze
- None on record
- NOAA RCC ACIS 1991–2020, this town’s own record
- Town area
- 2K 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 10a is Siesta Key's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Siesta Key'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 Siesta Key
Each reading below is measured for Siesta Key itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Winter hardiness
MeasuredSiesta Key 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 Siesta Key is in
Siesta Key sits in the Southern Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Siesta Key's own centroid rather than borrowed from Sarasota County.
What Grows in Siesta Key
Every plant below cleared Siesta Key's own zone 10a. Each card opens that plant's Florida profile. How we score.
What's on the federal record near Siesta Key
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Siesta Key. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 37S17E17 4 423 FLNitrate · 350 ft
- FRONTIER FL LLC-SIESTA KEY EAX COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- 36S17E12 71623301142 FLNitrate · 2400 ft
- T. B. COX WELL NEAR SARASOTA FLNitrate · 0.6 mi
- 71623301134 FLNitrate · 0.6 mi
- A. RIVER BRADLEY WELL NEAR SARASOTA FLNitrate · 0.6 mi
- 36S17E12 71623301141 FLNitrate · 0.6 mi
- WAGNER WELL NEAR SARASOTA FLNitrate · 0.6 mi
- LYALL ZICKRICH WELL NEAR SARASOTA FLNitrate · 0.6 mi
- TIVOLI BY THE SEAUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- GULF & BAY CLUB CONDOMINIUMSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- 36S17E12 71623301314 FLNitrate · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Siesta Key'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 Siesta Key.
Total Sites
1,181
within ~10 miles of Siesta Key
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
7 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Siesta Key
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Siesta Key
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 Siesta Key
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 Siesta Key average
Your land is one point inside Siesta Key
Everything above resolves to Siesta Key as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Siesta Key Average
Siesta Key Average
- ●USDA Zones 10a, averaged across Siesta Key
- ●One soil character for all of Siesta Key
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Siesta Key's 10a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Siesta Key
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Siesta Key, Florida — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Siesta Key averages can't show:
We read public map data around Siesta Key — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Siesta Key average
How we know this about Siesta Key
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 Siesta Key
Is it too late to plant in Siesta Key?
No — Siesta Key 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 Siesta Key?
It doesn't — Siesta Key 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 Siesta Key?
Year-round — the 1991–2020 station record for Siesta Key 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 Siesta Key?
The federal record around Siesta Key is a meaningful one — 1,181 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (590), the nearest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile 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 Siesta Key's scale — its 10a band and its no killing freeze on record. Your yard writes its own version of Siesta Key'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 Siesta Key’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Siesta Key's own scale — the 1,500 acres it covers and 1,181 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Siesta Key's own USDA hardiness band, zones 10aUSDA PHZM 2023
- No 28°F killing freeze in the 30-year station record covering Siesta Key — a year-round growing seasonNOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- 1,181 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Siesta Key, the closest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Siesta Key's boundary and the 1,500 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear Siesta Key's hardiness zoneGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Siesta Key's own centroid, the Southern Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Siesta Key's 1,500 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 Siesta Key's 1,500 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Siesta Key you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,500 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile 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 Siesta Key-wide figureread your own land →