Gainesville, FL 32608 Frost Dates
When can you plant in Gainesville, FL?
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 03/04, roughly 188 days out. The first fall frost typically arrives around 12/04, about 274 frost-free days later.
Gainesville sits in USDA Zone 9a (20 to 25°F average annual minimum). The dates above are NOAA's 1991-2020 normal at the nearest reporting station, a 30-year average, not a forecast.
What to do before the first frost
About 14 weeks of growing season left in Gainesville before the first fall frost — a cold frame or row cover can stretch harvest weeks past that date.
The actual range around Gainesville's last frost
03/04 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Plant by 02/03 and you're betting against frost in roughly 9 years out of 10. 03/26 is the safer bet, historically only a 1-in-10 chance of frost that late.
How Gainesville compares
At roughly 274 frost-free days, Gainesville places 5,138 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within FL, it ranks 1,482 of 1,609.
Learn more
zone vs. frost date covers why Zone 9a and Gainesville's frost date answer different questions. the frost range covers how to read the range around Gainesville's dates instead of trusting one.