Ouachita 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.
These conditions suit cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Ouachita Parish lies within the Mississippi Delta — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Ouachita Parish holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Ouachita 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 Ouachita Parish — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Ouachita Parish — the short answer
Ouachita Parish, Louisiana: USDA zone 8b, about 284 days between hard freezes, across 390K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~284
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 390K 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 Ouachita Parish's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Ouachita Parish's 284-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Ouachita Parish
Across a year, Ouachita Parish accumulates about 5,756 growing degree days above 50°F, about 540 fewer than the middle Louisiana county — ahead of 11 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 1,018 hours below 45°F, 406 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 Ouachita County
Across Ouachita County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Perry, Ruston, and Guyton are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.8–5.6, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
35%
Hydric soils
33%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Ouachita Parish
The USDA soil survey maps 30% of Ouachita Parish as well drained — but another 64% drains differently: 30% poorly drained, 21% somewhat poorly drained.
Perry is the most extensive named soil at 16% of mapped acres, then Ruston (13%) and Guyton (12%).
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 Ouachita Parish
Each reading below is measured for Ouachita 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 Ouachita Parish are well drained, in hydrologic group 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 Ouachita Parish runs about pH 4.8–5.6, 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 33% of Ouachita 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
MeasuredOuachita Parish runs about 284 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 Ouachita Parish is in
Ouachita Parish spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — South Central Plains (56%) and Mississippi Alluvial Plain (44%). 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 Ouachita Parish
We scored all 1,086 plants against Ouachita Parish's own USDA zone 8b and its own 284-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 Ouachita Parish?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 18 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 29 — 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 Ouachita Parish
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Ouachita Parish
USGS estimates 69,840 lb of Glyphosate on Ouachita Parish farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (34,587 lb) and 2,4-d (28,412 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 Ouachita County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Ouachita County — 1,396 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 37 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
There's a meaningful federal record across Ouachita 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 Ouachita Parish
Closest first, across Ouachita County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Ou-78Nitrate · 900 ft
- Riverwood International - Plant #20Underground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- PETRIN CORPBrownfields · 1100 ft
- Ou-82Nitrate · 1300 ft
- Ou-81Nitrate · 1400 ft
- Graphic Packaging International LLC - West Monroe Mill #31Underground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- GRAPHIC PACKAGING INTERNATIONAL LLC, WEST MONROE MILL PLANT 31Toxics Release Inventory · 2200 ft
- Circle K #7761Underground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- GRAPHIC PACKAGING INTERNATIONAL INC - PRINT PLANT #70Toxics Release Inventory · 2300 ft
- Circle K #3906Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- STRONGS SAW & SMALL ENGINE SVCBrownfields · 2600 ft
- Jack Armstrong PropertyUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Ouachita 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 Ouachita Parish.
Total Sites
1,396
across Ouachita County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
37 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Ouachita County
Severity Distribution
across Ouachita County
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Ouachita 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 Ouachita Parish average
Your land is one point inside Ouachita Parish
Everything above resolves to Ouachita Parish as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 390K 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 Ouachita Parish Average
Ouachita Parish Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Ouachita Parish
- ●One soil character for all of Ouachita Parish
- ●Frost dates read at Ouachita Parish's scale: Feb 18 to Nov 29
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Ouachita Parish's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Ouachita Parish
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Ouachita Parish averages can't show:
We read public map data around Ouachita Parish — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Ouachita Parish average
How we know this about Ouachita 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 Ouachita Parish carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Ouachita Parish
When does frost risk typically end in Ouachita Parish?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Ouachita Parish typically lands around Feb 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 Mar 11.
How long is the growing season in Ouachita Parish?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Ouachita Parish sees about 284 frost-free days — roughly Feb 18 through Nov 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 11 to Nov 15, about 249 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Ouachita Parish?
The federal record around Ouachita Parish is a meaningful one — 1,396 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (621), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.2 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 Ouachita Parish's scale — its 8b band and its 284-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Ouachita 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 Ouachita Parish’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Ouachita Parish's own scale — its own ~284-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 1,396 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Ouachita Parish's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Ouachita Parish's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~284-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Ouachita ParishUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 1,396 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 0.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Ouachita Parish's boundary and the 390,492 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~284-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Ouachita Parish spans, South Central Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Ouachita Parish for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Ouachita 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 Ouachita Parish — the ~284 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 Ouachita Parish's 390,492 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 1,396 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 Ouachita Parishread your own land →