Cameron Parish, in Louisiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Crops well matched to these conditions include okra, meyer lemon, california poppy, and artichoke — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Cameron Parish lies within the Gulf Coast — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Cameron Parish holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Cameron 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 Cameron Parish — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Cameron Parish — the short answer
Cameron Parish, Louisiana: USDA zone 9b, about 320 days between hard freezes, across 822K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jan 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~320
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 822K 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 9b is Cameron Parish's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cameron Parish's 320-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Cameron Parish
Across a year, Cameron Parish accumulates about 6,882 growing degree days above 50°F, about 586 more than the middle Louisiana county — ahead of 54 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 182 hours below 45°F, 430 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 Cameron County
Across Cameron County, the ground is predominantly Entisols, where Allemands, Bancker, and Creole are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally very poorly drained with a clay surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.5–7.0, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Entisols
Drainage
Very poorly drained
Prime farmland
10%
Hydric soils
89%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Cameron Parish
The USDA soil survey maps 62% of Cameron Parish as very poorly drained — but another 15% drains differently: 10% poorly drained, 5% somewhat poorly drained.
Allemands is the most extensive named soil at 19% of mapped acres, then Bancker (17%) and Creole (14%).
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 Cameron Parish
Each reading below is measured for Cameron 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 Cameron Parish are very 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 Cameron Parish runs about pH 5.5–7.0, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredCameron Parish runs about 320 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
MeasuredCameron Parish 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 Cameron Parish is in
Cameron Parish sits in the Western Gulf Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Cameron Parish
We scored all 1,086 plants against Cameron Parish's own USDA zone 9b and its own 320-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 Cameron Parish?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. 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 27 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 13 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. In a climate this gentle, “too late” hardly applies — the question becomes which crops prefer the cooler months ahead.
Documented around Cameron Parish
- monarch butterfly19 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Cameron Parish
USGS estimates 26,108 lb of 2,4-d on Cameron Parish farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (12,620 lb) and Triclopyr (5,547 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 Cameron County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Cameron County — 302 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 3 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Cameron County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Cameron Parish
Closest first, across Cameron County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Heberts Service StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- TXC CameronUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- Cn-107Nitrate · 4.4 mi
- GRAHAM MARINE INCBrownfields · 4.4 mi
- Roy BaileyUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
- Jerome's IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
- LADOTD - Creole Maintenance UnitUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.7 mi
- SO.CAMERON MEMORIAL HOSPITALBrownfields · 4.8 mi
- GENERAL MARINE SERVICE OF GRAND CHENIERBrownfields · 4.8 mi
- Bayou Fuel StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.0 mi
- Baudoin Brothers ExxonUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.0 mi
- ROY BAILEY CONSTRUCTION COBrownfields · 5.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cameron 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 Cameron Parish.
Sources Checked
across Cameron County
Severity Distribution
across Cameron County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cameron Parish, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 126 sites across Cameron County. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Cameron 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 Cameron Parish average
Your land is one point inside Cameron Parish
Everything above resolves to Cameron Parish as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 822K 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 Cameron Parish Average
Cameron Parish Average
- ●USDA Zones 9b, averaged across Cameron Parish
- ●One soil character for all of Cameron Parish
- ●Frost dates read at Cameron Parish's scale: Jan 27 to Dec 13
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cameron Parish's 9b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Cameron Parish
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cameron Parish, Louisiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cameron Parish averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cameron Parish — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cameron Parish average
How we know this about Cameron 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 Cameron Parish carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Cameron Parish
When does frost risk typically end in Cameron Parish?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cameron Parish typically lands around Jan 27, 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 17.
How long is the growing season in Cameron Parish?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cameron Parish sees about 320 frost-free days — roughly Jan 27 through Dec 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 17 to Nov 29, about 285 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cameron Parish?
The federal record around Cameron Parish is a meaningful one — 302 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (126), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.3 miles 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 Cameron Parish's scale — its 9b band and its 320-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cameron 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 Cameron Parish’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Cameron Parish's own scale — its own ~320-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 302 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cameron Parish's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cameron Parish's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~320-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Cameron ParishUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 302 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Cameron Parish's boundary and the 822,168 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9b and a ~320-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Cameron Parish sitting wholly inside the Western Gulf Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Cameron Parish for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Cameron 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 Cameron Parish — the ~320 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 Cameron Parish's 822,168 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 302 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 Cameron Parishread your own land →