Bayou Gauche, Louisiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
On paper, okra, meyer lemon, california poppy, and artichoke all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Bayou Gauche, 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 Bayou Gauche 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 Bayou Gauche — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Bayou Gauche — the short answer
Bayou Gauche, Louisiana: USDA zone 9b, about 337 days between hard freezes, across 8K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 9b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jan 18
- St. Charles Parish normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 21
- St. Charles Parish normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~337
- St. Charles Parish normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Town area
- 8K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. No 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid, so the hard-freeze dates are St. Charles Parish’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 9b is Bayou Gauche's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bayou Gauche's 337-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Bayou Gauche
Each reading below is measured for Bayou Gauche itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsBayou Gauche runs about 337 days between hard freezes (read from St. Charles Parish, the closest normal to Bayou Gauche) — close to year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredBayou Gauche sits in USDA hardiness zone 9b.
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 Bayou Gauche is in
Bayou Gauche sits in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Bayou Gauche's own centroid rather than borrowed from St. Charles Parish.
What Grows in Bayou Gauche
Every plant below cleared Bayou Gauche's own zone 9b and its 337-day season. Each card opens that plant's Louisiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Bayou Gauche?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Jan 18 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 21 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the calendar nearly circles: cool-season crops take the winter shift, and the next window is always close.
What's on the federal record near Bayou Gauche
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Bayou Gauche. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Tim DefreneUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- CS Ventures Inc dba Jim'sUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- DENBURY MGMT INC BAYOU DES ALLEMANDSBrownfields · 2300 ft
- Bayou Des AllemandsUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- SC-60Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- Sunny's #1Underground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- Fisherman's WharfUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- Red Sun MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- Siarc IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- Former Esso 5-8032Underground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- Somme Food Mart #2Underground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- Smile InnUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bayou Gauche'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 Bayou Gauche.
Total Sites
147
within ~10 miles of Bayou Gauche
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
11 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Bayou Gauche
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Bayou Gauche
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bayou Gauche, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 11 sites within ~10 miles of Bayou Gauche. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Bayou Gauche
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 Bayou Gauche average
Your land is one point inside Bayou Gauche
Everything above resolves to Bayou Gauche as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 8K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from St. Charles Parish’s record because no 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid. 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 Bayou Gauche Average
Bayou Gauche Average
- ●USDA Zones 9b, averaged across Bayou Gauche
- ●One soil character for all of Bayou Gauche
- ●Frost dates read at Bayou Gauche's scale: Jan 18 to Dec 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bayou Gauche's 9b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Bayou Gauche
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bayou Gauche, Louisiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bayou Gauche averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bayou Gauche — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bayou Gauche average
How we know this about Bayou Gauche
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 at St. Charles Parish’s record, because none resolves here; 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 Bayou Gauche
When does frost risk typically end in Bayou Gauche?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bayou Gauche typically lands around Jan 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — earlier than the light-frost dates most charts quote. That marks the hard freeze, not the last light frost — lighter frosts keep biting past it, which is why tender transplants here wait until about Feb 8.
When is the first frost in Bayou Gauche?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Bayou Gauche typically arrives around Dec 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Dec 7, so the watching starts about Nov 21 — about 337 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Bayou Gauche?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bayou Gauche sees about 337 frost-free days — roughly Jan 18 through Dec 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 8 to Dec 7, about 302 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bayou Gauche?
The federal record around Bayou Gauche shows 147 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (72), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Bayou Gauche?
From about Nov 21 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Dec 21 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Dec 21. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Bayou Gauche's scale — its 9b band and its 337-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bayou Gauche'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 Bayou Gauche’s own scale
5 of the readings below were taken at Bayou Gauche's own scale — the 8,226 acres it covers and 147 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bayou Gauche's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9bUSDA PHZM 2023
- 147 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Bayou Gauche, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Bayou Gauche's boundary and the 8,226 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9b and a ~337-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Bayou Gauche's own centroid, the Mississippi Alluvial PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Bayou Gauche has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom St. Charles Parish
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Bayou Gauche's 8,226 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom St. Charles County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom St. Charles County
- The growing challenges every Louisiana grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Louisiana
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom St. Charles County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bayou Gauche's 8,226 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Bayou Gauche you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 8,226 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Bayou Gauche-wide figureread your own land →