Jackson Parish, in Louisiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Jackson Parish lies within the Piney Woods — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Jackson Parish holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Jackson 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 Jackson Parish — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Jackson Parish — the short answer
Jackson Parish, Louisiana: USDA zone 8b, about 275 days between hard freezes, across 365K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~275
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 365K 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 8b is Jackson Parish's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Jackson Parish's 275-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Jackson Parish
Across a year, Jackson Parish accumulates about 5,641 growing degree days above 50°F, about 655 fewer than the middle Louisiana county — ahead of 5 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 1,075 hours below 45°F, 463 more 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 Jackson County
Across Jackson County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Sacul, Guyton, and Ouachita are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.0–5.3, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C/D soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
36%
Hydric soils
17%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Jackson Parish
The USDA soil survey maps 44% of Jackson Parish as well drained — but another 54% drains differently: 41% moderately well drained, 12% somewhat poorly drained.
Sacul is the most extensive named soil at 40% of mapped acres, then Guyton (10%) and Ouachita (7%).
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 Jackson Parish
Each reading below is measured for Jackson 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 Jackson Parish are well drained, in hydrologic group C/D — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Jackson Parish runs about pH 5.0–5.3, 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
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 17% of Jackson Parish is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredJackson Parish runs about 275 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
The kind of country Jackson Parish is in
Jackson Parish sits in the South Central Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Jackson Parish
We scored all 1,086 plants against Jackson Parish's own USDA zone 8b and its own 275-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 Jackson 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 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 23 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 25 — 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.
What gets applied to farmland in Jackson Parish
USGS estimates 1,157 lb of 2,4-d on Jackson Parish farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (391 lb) and Triclopyr (315 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 Jackson County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Jackson County — 241 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Toxics Release Inventory facility. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
There's a meaningful federal record across Jackson 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 Jackson Parish
Closest first, across Jackson County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Joe MckowenUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- Conn's StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- Ja-156Nitrate · 3.9 mi
- GULF RUN TRANSMISSION LLC VERNON COMPRESSOR STATIONBrownfields · 4.3 mi
- Ja-116Nitrate · 4.4 mi
- Ja-145Nitrate · 4.8 mi
- Ja-110Nitrate · 5.0 mi
- Weston GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.0 mi
- DOLLAR GENERAL # 17707Brownfields · 5.1 mi
- Ja-4Nitrate · 5.1 mi
- Ja-144Nitrate · 5.1 mi
- Ja-88Nitrate · 5.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Jackson 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 Jackson Parish.
Total Sites
241
across Jackson County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
across Jackson County
Severity Distribution
across Jackson County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Jackson Parish, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 118 sites across Jackson 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 Jackson 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 Jackson Parish average
Your land is one point inside Jackson Parish
Everything above resolves to Jackson Parish as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 365K 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 Jackson Parish Average
Jackson Parish Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Jackson Parish
- ●One soil character for all of Jackson Parish
- ●Frost dates read at Jackson Parish's scale: Feb 23 to Nov 25
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Jackson Parish's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Jackson Parish
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Jackson Parish, Louisiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Jackson Parish averages can't show:
We read public map data around Jackson Parish — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Jackson Parish average
How we know this about Jackson 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 Jackson Parish carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Jackson Parish
When does frost risk typically end in Jackson Parish?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Jackson Parish typically lands around Feb 23, 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 Mar 16.
How long is the growing season in Jackson Parish?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Jackson Parish sees about 275 frost-free days — roughly Feb 23 through Nov 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 16 to Nov 11, about 240 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Jackson Parish?
The federal record around Jackson Parish is a meaningful one — 241 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (118), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Jackson Parish's scale — its 8b band and its 275-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Jackson 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 Jackson Parish’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Jackson Parish's own scale — its own ~275-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 241 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Jackson Parish's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Jackson Parish's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~275-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Jackson ParishUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 241 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Jackson Parish's boundary and the 364,579 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~275-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Jackson Parish sitting wholly inside the South Central PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Jackson 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 Jackson Parish — the ~275 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 Jackson Parish's 364,579 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 241 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 Jackson Parishread your own land →