Belle, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Expect cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Belle, 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 Belle 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 Belle — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Belle — the short answer
Belle, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 220 days between hard freezes, across 854 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~220
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 854 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 6b is Belle's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Belle's 220-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Belle
Each reading below is measured for Belle itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBelle runs about 220 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
MeasuredBelle sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Belle is in
Belle sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Belle's own centroid rather than borrowed from Maries County.
What Grows in Belle
Every plant below cleared Belle's own zone 6b and its 220-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Belle?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 2; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 30 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 5 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Belle
Survey cells within 31 miles of Belle checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 306 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Belle
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Belle. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BOB'S SHELL SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #1046Underground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #2243Underground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- T41N R07W 21BBC1Nitrate · 800 ft
- T41N R07W 20AAC1Nitrate · 1300 ft
- HOCKER OIL CO #10Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- T41N R07W 20DBB1Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- BELLE MAINT BLDGUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- ROYAL OAK ENTERPRISES, LLCToxics Release Inventory · 1.5 mi
- OWENS SINCLAIRUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- CONOCOPHILLIPS - BELLE TERMINALBrownfields · 3.7 mi
- KINGSFORD MANUFACTURING CO BRIQUETTING PLANTBrownfields · 4.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Belle'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 Belle.
Total Sites
26
within ~10 miles of Belle
Risk Level
Low
Highest-severity
3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Belle
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Belle
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Belle, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Belle — Toxics Release Inventory (3 sites) and Nitrate (10 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Belle
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 Belle average
Your land is one point inside Belle
Everything above resolves to Belle as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 854 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 city 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 Belle Average
Belle Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Belle
- ●One soil character for all of Belle
- ●Frost dates read at Belle's scale: Mar 30 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Belle's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Belle
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Belle, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Belle averages can't show:
We read public map data around Belle — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Belle average
How we know this about Belle
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Belle’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Belle
When does frost risk typically end in Belle?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Belle typically lands around Mar 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 Apr 20.
When is the first frost in Belle?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Belle typically arrives around Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 22, so the watching starts about Oct 6 — about 220 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Belle?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Belle sees about 220 frost-free days — roughly Mar 30 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 20 to Oct 22, about 185 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Belle?
The federal record around Belle is light — 26 documented sites across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Nitrate entries (10), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out — and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. Growing food here starts from a strong position; a soil test before new food beds settles any site-specific question.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Belle?
From about Oct 6 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 5 (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 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Belle's scale — its 6b band and its 220-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Belle'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 Belle’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Belle's own scale — its own ~220-day season between 28°F freezes, the 854 acres it covers and 26 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Belle's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Belle's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 30 and Nov 5 and the ~220-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 26 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Belle, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Belle's boundary and the 854 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~220-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Belle's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Belle checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Belle's 854 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Maries County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Maries 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 Maries County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Belle's 854 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Belle you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 854 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 Belle-wide figureread your own land →
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