Rapides 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.
Growers here do well with artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Rapides 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
Rapides Parish holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Rapides 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 Rapides Parish — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Rapides Parish — the short answer
Rapides Parish, Louisiana: USDA zone 9a, about 291 days between hard freezes, across 847K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~291
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 847K 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 Rapides Parish's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Rapides Parish's 291-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Rapides Parish
Across a year, Rapides Parish accumulates about 6,185 growing degree days above 50°F, about 111 fewer than the middle Louisiana county — ahead of 29 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 689 hours below 45°F, 77 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 Rapides County
Across Rapides County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Moreland, Coushatta, and Ruston are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.3–6.5, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
56%
Hydric soils
18%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Rapides Parish
The USDA soil survey maps 29% of Rapides Parish as well drained — but another 66% drains differently: 27% moderately well drained, 24% somewhat poorly drained.
Moreland is the most extensive named soil at 13% of mapped acres, then Coushatta (9%) and Ruston (9%).
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 Rapides Parish
Each reading below is measured for Rapides 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 Rapides 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 Rapides Parish runs about pH 5.3–6.5, 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 18% of Rapides 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
MeasuredRapides Parish runs about 291 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 Rapides Parish is in
Rapides 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 Rapides Parish
We scored all 1,086 plants against Rapides Parish's own USDA zone 9a and its own 291-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 Rapides 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 16; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 1 — 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 Rapides Parish
- monarch butterfly6 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Rapides Parish
USGS estimates 116,469 lb of Glyphosate on Rapides Parish farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (49,691 lb) and Metolachlor-s (47,037 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 Rapides County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Rapides County — 2,018 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 8 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 Rapides 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 Rapides Parish
Closest first, across Rapides County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Budget Rent A CarUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- LA INDUSTRIES INC WOODWORTH PITBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- MID STATE SAND & GRAVEL COBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- TOWN OF WOODWORTH WATER SYSTEMPFAS · 1.6 mi
- Country MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- R-719Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- R-432BNitrate · 1.7 mi
- R-432ANitrate · 1.7 mi
- R-843Nitrate · 1.7 mi
- R-721Nitrate · 3.1 mi
- Leebo's #7Underground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- Woodworth Corner Store IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Rapides 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 Rapides Parish.
Sources Checked
across Rapides County
Severity Distribution
across Rapides County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Rapides Parish, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 788 sites across Rapides County. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
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 Rapides 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 Rapides Parish average
Your land is one point inside Rapides Parish
Everything above resolves to Rapides Parish as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 847K 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 Rapides Parish Average
Rapides Parish Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Rapides Parish
- ●One soil character for all of Rapides Parish
- ●Frost dates read at Rapides Parish's scale: Feb 13 to Dec 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Rapides Parish's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Rapides Parish
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Rapides Parish, Louisiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Rapides Parish averages can't show:
We read public map data around Rapides Parish — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Rapides Parish average
How we know this about Rapides 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 Rapides Parish carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Rapides Parish
When does frost risk typically end in Rapides Parish?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Rapides Parish typically lands around Feb 13, 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 6.
How long is the growing season in Rapides Parish?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Rapides Parish sees about 291 frost-free days — roughly Feb 13 through Dec 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 6 to Nov 17, about 256 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Rapides Parish?
The federal record around Rapides Parish is a meaningful one — 2,018 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (788), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Rapides Parish's scale — its 9a band and its 291-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Rapides 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 Rapides Parish’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Rapides Parish's own scale — its own ~291-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 2,018 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Rapides Parish's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Rapides Parish's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~291-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Rapides ParishUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 2,018 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Rapides Parish's boundary and the 847,410 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~291-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Rapides Parish sitting wholly inside the South Central PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Rapides Parish for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Rapides 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 Rapides Parish — the ~291 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 Rapides Parish's 847,410 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 2,018 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 Rapides Parishread your own land →