Ashburn, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
The conditions favor cabbage, blueberry, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Ashburn, 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 Ashburn 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 Ashburn — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Ashburn — the short answer
Ashburn, Missouri: USDA zone 6a, about 227 days between hard freezes, across 84 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~227
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 84 acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 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 6a is Ashburn's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Ashburn's 227-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Ashburn
Each reading below is measured for Ashburn itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredAshburn runs about 227 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredAshburn sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Ashburn is in
Ashburn sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Ashburn's own centroid rather than borrowed from Pike County.
What Grows in Ashburn
Every plant below cleared Ashburn's own zone 6a and its 227-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Ashburn?
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 Feb 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 10 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
What's on the federal record near Ashburn
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Ashburn. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- WOODS MFA SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 350 ft
- TED SHANKS WILDLIFE AREAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- 1200 N and 1200 ENitrate · 2.8 mi
- OAK GROVE DRIVE-INUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- 1000 N and 1650 ENitrate · 6.0 mi
- LOUISIANA PWSPFAS · 7.0 mi
- Sny Drainage DistrictUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.4 mi
- Donald Epley ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.4 mi
- Old J&D CafeUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.4 mi
- New Canton Fast StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.4 mi
- FRANKFORD MAINT LOTUnderground Storage Tanks · 8.4 mi
- ENNIS FLINTBrownfields · 8.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Ashburn'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 Ashburn.
Total Sites
58
within ~10 miles of Ashburn
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Ashburn
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Ashburn
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Ashburn, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Ashburn — PFAS (3 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (4 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Ashburn
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 Ashburn average
Your land is one point inside Ashburn
Everything above resolves to Ashburn as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 84 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 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 Ashburn Average
Ashburn Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Ashburn
- ●One soil character for all of Ashburn
- ●Frost dates read at Ashburn's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Ashburn's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Ashburn
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Ashburn, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Ashburn averages can't show:
We read public map data around Ashburn — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Ashburn average
How we know this about Ashburn
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 Ashburn’s own record; 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 Ashburn
When does frost risk typically end in Ashburn?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Ashburn typically lands around Mar 28, 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 Apr 18.
When is the first frost in Ashburn?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Ashburn typically arrives around Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 27, so the watching starts about Oct 11 — about 227 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Ashburn?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Ashburn sees about 227 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Oct 27, about 192 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Ashburn?
The federal record around Ashburn shows 58 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (35), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Ashburn?
From about Oct 11 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 Nov 10 (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 Nov 10. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Ashburn's scale — its 6a band and its 227-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Ashburn'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 Ashburn’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Ashburn's own scale — its own ~227-day season between 28°F freezes, the 84 acres it covers and 58 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Ashburn's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Ashburn's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 10 and the ~227-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 58 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Ashburn, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Ashburn's boundary and the 84 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~227-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Ashburn's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Ashburn's 84 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Pike County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Pike County
- The growing challenges every Missouri grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Missouri
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Pike County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Ashburn's 84 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Ashburn you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 84 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Ashburn-wide figureread your own land →
More in Missouri
Wider growing context
What grows across MissouriAshburn sits outside our named growing regions, so Missouri as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides