Birmingham, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Birmingham, 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 Birmingham 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 Birmingham — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Birmingham — the short answer
Birmingham, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 228 days between hard freezes, across 360 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- 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 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~228
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 360 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 Birmingham's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Birmingham's 228-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Birmingham
Each reading below is measured for Birmingham itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBirmingham runs about 228 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
MeasuredBirmingham 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 Birmingham is in
Birmingham sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Birmingham's own centroid rather than borrowed from Clay County.
What Grows in Birmingham
Every plant below cleared Birmingham's own zone 6b and its 228-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Birmingham?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. 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 11 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Birmingham
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Birmingham. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ARTIC GLACIER USA INCToxics Release Inventory · 0.5 mi
- TRANSPORT CORPORATION OF AMERICAUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- SHALEROCK LLCBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- SOMMER ALLIBERT INDUSTRIESToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- CONKLIN COMPANY INCBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- HEARTLAND SHEETS LLCBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- PATHFINDER SYSTEMS INCBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- REDDY ICE-KANSAS CITY (260)Toxics Release Inventory · 0.7 mi
- LAFARGE NORTH AMERICA INC-ARLINGTON RM PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 0.7 mi
- WW GRAINGER INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- FEDEX GROUND HUB #664Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- DISTRIBUTOR WIRE & CABLEBrownfields · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Birmingham'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 Birmingham.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Birmingham
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Birmingham
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Birmingham, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 215 sites within ~10 miles of Birmingham. 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.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Birmingham
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 Birmingham average
Your land is one point inside Birmingham
Everything above resolves to Birmingham as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 360 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 Birmingham Average
Birmingham Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Birmingham
- ●One soil character for all of Birmingham
- ●Frost dates read at Birmingham's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Birmingham's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Birmingham
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Birmingham, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Birmingham averages can't show:
We read public map data around Birmingham — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Birmingham average
How we know this about Birmingham
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 Birmingham’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 Birmingham
When does frost risk typically end in Birmingham?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Birmingham 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 Birmingham?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Birmingham typically arrives around Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 28, so the watching starts about Oct 12 — about 228 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Birmingham?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Birmingham sees about 228 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Oct 28, about 193 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Birmingham?
The federal record around Birmingham runs heavier than most — 2,370 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,202), the nearest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.5 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Birmingham?
From about Oct 12 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 11 (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 11. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Birmingham's scale — its 6b band and its 228-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Birmingham'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 Birmingham’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Birmingham's own scale — its own ~228-day season between 28°F freezes, the 360 acres it covers and 2,370 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Birmingham's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Birmingham's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 11 and the ~228-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,370 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Birmingham, the closest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Birmingham's boundary and the 360 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~228-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Birmingham's own centroid, the Western Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Birmingham's 360 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Clay County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Clay 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 Clay County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Birmingham's 360 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Birmingham you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 360 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.5 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 Birmingham-wide figureread your own land →
More in Missouri
Wider growing context
What grows across MissouriBirmingham sits outside our named growing regions, so Missouri as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides