West Baton Rouge Parish, in Louisiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
A short list that earns its place here — artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
West Baton Rouge 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
West Baton Rouge Parish holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across West Baton Rouge 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 West Baton Rouge Parish — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
West Baton Rouge Parish — the short answer
West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana: USDA zone 9a, about 303 days between hard freezes, across 123K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~303
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 123K 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 West Baton Rouge Parish's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against West Baton Rouge Parish's 303-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in West Baton Rouge Parish
Across a year, West Baton Rouge Parish accumulates about 6,557 growing degree days above 50°F, about 261 more than the middle Louisiana county — ahead of 40 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 456 hours below 45°F, 156 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 West Baton Rouge County
Across West Baton Rouge County, the ground is predominantly Vertisols, where Sharkey, Commerce, and Robinsonville are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a clay surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.8–7.0, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Vertisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
93%
Hydric soils
48%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across West Baton Rouge Parish
The USDA soil survey maps 46% of West Baton Rouge Parish as poorly drained — but another 47% drains differently: 38% somewhat poorly drained, 8% well drained.
Sharkey is the most extensive named soil at 48% of mapped acres, then Commerce (37%) and Robinsonville (6%).
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 West Baton Rouge Parish
Each reading below is measured for West Baton Rouge 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 West Baton Rouge Parish are 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 West Baton Rouge Parish runs about pH 6.8–7.0, 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
MeasuredWest Baton Rouge Parish runs about 303 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
MeasuredWest Baton Rouge Parish sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a.
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 West Baton Rouge Parish is in
West Baton Rouge Parish sits in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in West Baton Rouge Parish
We scored all 1,086 plants against West Baton Rouge Parish's own USDA zone 9a and its own 303-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 West Baton Rouge 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 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 6 — 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 West Baton Rouge Parish
USGS estimates 28,447 lb of Glyphosate on West Baton Rouge Parish farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (10,030 lb) and Metolachlor-s (9,519 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 West Baton Rouge County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across West Baton Rouge County — 481 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 6 Superfund sites (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 West Baton Rouge 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 West Baton Rouge Parish
Closest first, across West Baton Rouge County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- West Baton Rouge Parish School BoardUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- TETCO VALVES LINE 40 MP 154.78Brownfields · 0.8 mi
- WBR-148Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- WBR-102BNitrate · 1.2 mi
- WBR-102ANitrate · 1.2 mi
- WEST BATON ROUGE WATER WORKS DISTRICT 2PFAS · 1.7 mi
- WBR PUBLIC UTILITIESPFAS · 1.7 mi
- PORT ALLEN WATER SYSTEMPFAS · 1.7 mi
- WBR DISTRICT 4 -SECTION ROAD WINTERVILLEPFAS · 1.7 mi
- WBR-14Nitrate · 2.0 mi
- WBR-70Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- SAFEWAY TRANSPORTATION, INC.Brownfields · 2.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from West Baton Rouge 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 West Baton Rouge Parish.
Total Sites
481
across West Baton Rouge County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
6 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across West Baton Rouge County
Severity Distribution
across West Baton Rouge County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around West Baton Rouge Parish, two things run higher than the national average across West Baton Rouge County — Nitrate (142 sites) and PFAS (4 sites). 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.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in West Baton Rouge 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 West Baton Rouge Parish average
Your land is one point inside West Baton Rouge Parish
Everything above resolves to West Baton Rouge Parish as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 123K 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 West Baton Rouge Parish Average
West Baton Rouge Parish Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across West Baton Rouge Parish
- ●One soil character for all of West Baton Rouge Parish
- ●Frost dates read at West Baton Rouge Parish's scale: Feb 6 to Dec 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not West Baton Rouge Parish's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in West Baton Rouge Parish
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that West Baton Rouge Parish averages can't show:
We read public map data around West Baton Rouge Parish — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the West Baton Rouge Parish average
How we know this about West Baton Rouge 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 West Baton Rouge Parish carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about West Baton Rouge Parish
When does frost risk typically end in West Baton Rouge Parish?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in West Baton Rouge Parish typically lands around Feb 6, 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 27.
How long is the growing season in West Baton Rouge Parish?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, West Baton Rouge Parish sees about 303 frost-free days — roughly Feb 6 through Dec 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 27 to Nov 22, about 268 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in West Baton Rouge Parish?
The federal record around West Baton Rouge Parish is a meaningful one — 481 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (175), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 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 West Baton Rouge Parish's scale — its 9a band and its 303-day season. Your yard writes its own version of West Baton Rouge 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 West Baton Rouge Parish’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at West Baton Rouge Parish's own scale — its own ~303-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 481 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- West Baton Rouge Parish's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- West Baton Rouge Parish's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~303-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in West Baton Rouge ParishUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 481 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 miles outFederal environmental registers
- West Baton Rouge Parish's boundary and the 123,102 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~303-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- West Baton Rouge Parish sitting wholly inside the Mississippi Alluvial PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto West Baton Rouge 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 West Baton Rouge Parish — the ~303 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 West Baton Rouge Parish's 123,102 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 481 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 West Baton Rouge Parishread your own land →