LaSalle Parish, in Louisiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
LaSalle 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
LaSalle Parish holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across LaSalle 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 LaSalle Parish — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
LaSalle Parish — the short answer
LaSalle Parish, Louisiana: USDA zone 8b, about 280 days between hard freezes, across 400K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~280
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 400K 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 LaSalle Parish's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against LaSalle Parish's 280-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in LaSalle Parish
Across a year, LaSalle Parish accumulates about 5,818 growing degree days above 50°F, about 478 fewer than the middle Louisiana county — ahead of 16 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 887 hours below 45°F, 275 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 LaSalle County
Across LaSalle County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Ruston, Smithdale, and Tippah are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.0–5.5, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C/D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
48%
Hydric soils
29%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across LaSalle Parish
The USDA soil survey maps 35% of LaSalle Parish as well drained — but another 60% drains differently: 26% moderately well drained, 17% somewhat poorly drained.
Ruston is the most extensive named soil at 12% of mapped acres, then Smithdale (8%) and Tippah (8%).
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 LaSalle Parish
Each reading below is measured for LaSalle 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 LaSalle 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 LaSalle Parish runs about pH 5.0–5.5, 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 29% of LaSalle 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
MeasuredLaSalle Parish runs about 280 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 LaSalle Parish is in
LaSalle Parish spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — South Central Plains (80%) and Mississippi Alluvial Plain (21%). 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 LaSalle Parish
We scored all 1,086 plants against LaSalle Parish's own USDA zone 8b and its own 280-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 LaSalle 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 24; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 21 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 28 — 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.
What gets applied to farmland in LaSalle Parish
USGS estimates 3,590 lb of Glyphosate on LaSalle Parish farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (2,963 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (1,316 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 LaSalle County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across LaSalle County — 371 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed). 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 LaSalle 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 LaSalle Parish
Closest first, across LaSalle County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- W B McCartney Oil CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- Airport GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- Express Food MartUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- La-129Nitrate · 1800 ft
- JENA READY MIXToxics Release Inventory · 2500 ft
- BAKER PETROLITE - JENA STOCK LOCATIONBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- Justiss Oil Co Inc - WarehouseUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Mitchell & Mitchell House MoversUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Central LA Telephone CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- LaSalle Parish Police JuryUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- WB MCCARTNEY OIL CO INCBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- WB MCCARTNEY OIL CO INCToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from LaSalle 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 LaSalle Parish.
Total Sites
371
across LaSalle County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across LaSalle County
Severity Distribution
across LaSalle County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around LaSalle Parish, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 218 sites across LaSalle 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 LaSalle 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 LaSalle Parish average
Your land is one point inside LaSalle Parish
Everything above resolves to LaSalle Parish as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 400K 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 LaSalle Parish Average
LaSalle Parish Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across LaSalle Parish
- ●One soil character for all of LaSalle Parish
- ●Frost dates read at LaSalle Parish's scale: Feb 21 to Nov 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not LaSalle Parish's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in LaSalle Parish
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in LaSalle Parish, Louisiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that LaSalle Parish averages can't show:
We read public map data around LaSalle Parish — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the LaSalle Parish average
How we know this about LaSalle 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 LaSalle Parish carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about LaSalle Parish
When does frost risk typically end in LaSalle Parish?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in LaSalle Parish typically lands around Feb 21, 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 14.
How long is the growing season in LaSalle Parish?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, LaSalle Parish sees about 280 frost-free days — roughly Feb 21 through Nov 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 14 to Nov 14, about 245 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in LaSalle Parish?
The federal record around LaSalle Parish is a meaningful one — 371 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (218), 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 LaSalle Parish's scale — its 8b band and its 280-day season. Your yard writes its own version of LaSalle 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 LaSalle Parish’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at LaSalle Parish's own scale — its own ~280-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 371 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- LaSalle Parish's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- LaSalle Parish's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~280-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in LaSalle ParishUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 371 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
- LaSalle Parish's boundary and the 399,906 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~280-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions LaSalle Parish spans, South Central Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto LaSalle 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 LaSalle Parish — the ~280 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 LaSalle Parish's 399,906 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 371 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 LaSalle Parishread your own land →