Starks, 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.
Well-matched crops include artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Starks, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Starks lot. 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 Starks — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Starks — the short answer
Starks, Louisiana: USDA zone 9a, about 313 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jan 30
- Calcasieu Parish normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 9
- Calcasieu Parish normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~313
- Calcasieu Parish normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Town area
- 2K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. No 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid, so the hard-freeze dates are Calcasieu Parish’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 9a is Starks's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Starks's 313-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Starks
Each reading below is measured for Starks itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsStarks runs about 313 days between hard freezes (read from Calcasieu Parish, the closest normal to Starks) — 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
MeasuredStarks 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 Starks is in
Starks sits in the South Central Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Starks's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Calcasieu Parish is mostly Western Gulf Coastal Plain. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Starks
Every plant below cleared Starks's own zone 9a and its 313-day season. Each card opens that plant's Louisiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Starks?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 2; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Jan 30 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 9 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
What's on the federal record near Starks
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Starks. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Cu-698Nitrate · 2300 ft
- Batchelor's Mercantile GulfUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- STARKS AUTOBrownfields · 2600 ft
- EZ Mart #4298Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Florida Gas Transmission Starks Compressor StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Stark's Truck StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Ristoms Big StarUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- Ward Five BarnUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- DOLLAR GENERAL 9536Brownfields · 0.7 mi
- Cu-7952ZNitrate · 1.1 mi
- TRANSCONTINENTAL GAS PIPE LINE CO LLC - COMPRESSOR STATION 42Brownfields · 2.3 mi
- Starks Highway GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Starks'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 Starks.
Total Sites
93
within ~10 miles of Starks
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Starks
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Starks
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Starks, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 38 sites within ~10 miles of Starks. 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 Starks
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 Starks average
Your land is one point inside Starks
Everything above resolves to Starks as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 2K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Calcasieu Parish’s record because no 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid. 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 town 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 local average.
Your Lot vs the Starks Average
Starks Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Starks
- ●One soil character for all of Starks
- ●Frost dates read at Starks's scale: Jan 30 to Dec 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Starks's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Starks
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Starks, Louisiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Starks averages can't show:
We read public map data around Starks — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Starks average
How we know this about Starks
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Calcasieu Parish’s record, because none resolves here; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Starks
When does frost risk typically end in Starks?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Starks typically lands around Jan 30, 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 20.
When is the first frost in Starks?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Starks typically arrives around Dec 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 25, so the watching starts about Nov 9 — about 313 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Starks?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Starks sees about 313 frost-free days — roughly Jan 30 through Dec 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 20 to Nov 25, about 278 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Starks?
The federal record around Starks shows 93 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (38), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.4 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Starks?
From about Nov 9 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Dec 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Dec 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Starks's scale — its 9a band and its 313-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Starks's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Starks’s own scale
5 of the readings below were taken at Starks's own scale — the 2,195 acres it covers and 93 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Starks's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- 93 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Starks, the closest Nitrate record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Starks's boundary and the 2,195 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~313-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Starks sits in the South Central Plains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Starks has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Calcasieu Parish
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Starks's 2,195 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Calcasieu County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Calcasieu County
- The growing challenges every Louisiana grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Louisiana
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Calcasieu County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Starks's 2,195 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Starks you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,195 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.4 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Starks-wide figureread your own land →
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