Calcasieu Parish, in Louisiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
On paper, artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Calcasieu Parish lies within Acadiana — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Calcasieu Parish holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Calcasieu Parish, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Calcasieu Parish — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Calcasieu Parish — the short answer
Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana: USDA zone 9a, about 313 days between hard freezes, across 681K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jan 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~313
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 681K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 28°F normals: light frosts run a few weeks past them, and tender transplants usually wait 2–3 weeks after the last hard freeze.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 9a is Calcasieu Parish's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Calcasieu Parish's 313-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Calcasieu Parish
Across a year, Calcasieu Parish accumulates about 6,726 growing degree days above 50°F, about 430 more than the middle Louisiana county — ahead of 48 of Louisiana’s 64 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Winter banks about 328 hours below 45°F, 284 fewer than the Louisiana middle of 612. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Calcasieu County
Across Calcasieu County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Mowata, Vidrine, and Edgerly are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.6–6.0, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
68%
Hydric soils
58%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Calcasieu Parish
The USDA soil survey maps 72% of Calcasieu Parish as poorly drained — but another 22% drains differently: 9% somewhat poorly drained, 7% very poorly drained.
Mowata is the most extensive named soil at 13% of mapped acres, then Vidrine (10%) and Edgerly (10%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Calcasieu Parish
Each reading below is measured for Calcasieu Parish itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Calcasieu Parish are poorly drained, in hydrologic group D — ground that sheds water slowly.
Beds can stay saturated for days after heavy rain, and the roots of most vegetables, berries, and fruit trees suffocate or rot in soil that never drains.
Raised beds or mounded rows lift roots above the wet zone; choose water-tolerant crops for the lowest spots.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Calcasieu Parish runs about pH 4.6–6.0, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredCalcasieu Parish runs about 313 days between hard freezes — 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
MeasuredCalcasieu Parish sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a.
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 Calcasieu Parish is in
Calcasieu Parish spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Western Gulf Coastal Plain (59%) and South Central Plains (41%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Calcasieu Parish
We scored all 1,086 plants against Calcasieu Parish's own USDA zone 9a and its own 313-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Louisiana profile.
Is it too late to plant in Calcasieu Parish?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 2; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Jan 30 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 9 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. And with a calendar this mild, the honest answer is that planting barely stops — winter opens seasons colder regions never see.
Documented around Calcasieu Parish
- monarch butterfly27 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Calcasieu Parish
USGS estimates 43,777 lb of 2,4-d on Calcasieu Parish farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (14,304 lb) and Triclopyr (9,520 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Calcasieu County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Calcasieu County — 2,253 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 16 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Calcasieu Parish carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Calcasieu Parish
Closest first, across Calcasieu County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Cu-706Nitrate · 200 ft
- DOLLAR GENERAL STORE #22891Brownfields · 450 ft
- Sulphur City of Water DeptUnderground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- Kroger #747 Kwik ShopUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- Calcasieu Parish Sheriff DepartmentUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- ADV HLTH CNTR INC DBA FIRST CHIROPBrownfields · 650 ft
- Super Saver #4Underground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- SALLY BEAUTY #2670Brownfields · 850 ft
- OAK PARK CHIROPRACTIC CLINICBrownfields · 850 ft
- Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office - West Calcasieu Law EnforcementUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- PETSENSE STORE #7162Brownfields · 1000 ft
- I MEDBrownfields · 1000 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Calcasieu Parish'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 Calcasieu Parish.
Sources Checked
across Calcasieu County
Severity Distribution
across Calcasieu County
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Calcasieu Parish
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 Calcasieu Parish average
Your land is one point inside Calcasieu Parish
Everything above resolves to Calcasieu Parish as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 681K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Calcasieu Parish Average
Calcasieu Parish Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Calcasieu Parish
- ●One soil character for all of Calcasieu Parish
- ●Frost dates read at Calcasieu Parish's scale: Jan 30 to Dec 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Calcasieu Parish's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Calcasieu Parish
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Calcasieu Parish averages can't show:
We read public map data around Calcasieu Parish — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Calcasieu Parish average
How we know this about Calcasieu Parish
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Calcasieu Parish carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Calcasieu Parish
When does frost risk typically end in Calcasieu Parish?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Calcasieu Parish typically lands around Jan 30, 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 20.
How long is the growing season in Calcasieu Parish?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Calcasieu Parish sees about 313 frost-free days — roughly Jan 30 through Dec 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 20 to Nov 25, about 278 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Calcasieu Parish?
The federal record around Calcasieu Parish runs heavier than most — 2,253 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (1,009), the nearest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
Everything above is measured at Calcasieu Parish's scale — its 9a band and its 313-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Calcasieu Parish's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Louisiana's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Calcasieu Parish’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Calcasieu Parish's own scale — its own ~313-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 2,253 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Calcasieu Parish's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Calcasieu Parish's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~313-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Calcasieu ParishUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 2,253 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile outFederal environmental registers
- Calcasieu Parish's boundary and the 681,080 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~313-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Calcasieu Parish spans, Western Gulf Coastal Plain the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Calcasieu Parish for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Calcasieu Parish farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Louisiana grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Louisiana
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Calcasieu Parish — the ~313 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Calcasieu Parish's 681,080 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 2,253 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Calcasieu Parishread your own land →