Butterfield, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Butterfield, 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 Butterfield 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 Butterfield — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Butterfield — the short answer
Butterfield, Missouri: USDA zone 7a, about 220 days between hard freezes, across 296 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~220
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 296 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 7a is Butterfield's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Butterfield's 220-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Butterfield
Each reading below is measured for Butterfield itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredButterfield 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
MeasuredButterfield sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Butterfield is in
Butterfield sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Butterfield's own centroid rather than borrowed from Barry County.
What Grows in Butterfield
Every plant below cleared Butterfield's own zone 7a and its 220-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Butterfield?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 7 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
What's on the federal record near Butterfield
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Butterfield. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- GEORGE'S POULTRY FEED MILLToxics Release Inventory · 0.8 mi
- GEORGES FEED MILLUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- HUDSON FARMS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- GEORGE'S PROCESSINC, INC.Toxics Release Inventory · 1.0 mi
- GEORGES PROCESSING INC OF MISSOURIBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- GEORGES PROCESSING INC OF MISSOURIToxics Release Inventory · 1.0 mi
- GEORGES INC PROCESSINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- WILLOW BROOK FOODS/BUTTERFIELDToxics Release Inventory · 1.2 mi
- THAO, NAY AND DOU V.CAFO · 1.3 mi
- JOHN HOLLOWAYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- KHEM KETTAVONGCAFO · 1.6 mi
- PAYLESS SALVAGEBrownfields · 1.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Butterfield'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 Butterfield.
Total Sites
211
within ~10 miles of Butterfield
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Butterfield
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Butterfield
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Butterfield, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Butterfield — CAFO (59 sites) and Mining (19 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Butterfield
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 Butterfield average
Your land is one point inside Butterfield
Everything above resolves to Butterfield as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 296 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 Butterfield Average
Butterfield Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Butterfield
- ●One soil character for all of Butterfield
- ●Frost dates read at Butterfield's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Butterfield's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Butterfield
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Butterfield, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Butterfield averages can't show:
We read public map data around Butterfield — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Butterfield average
How we know this about Butterfield
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 Butterfield’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 Butterfield
When does frost risk typically end in Butterfield?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Butterfield typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
When is the first frost in Butterfield?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Butterfield typically arrives around Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 24, so the watching starts about Oct 8 — about 220 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Butterfield?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Butterfield sees about 220 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 24, about 185 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Butterfield?
The federal record around Butterfield runs heavier than most — 211 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (72), the nearest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.8 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 Butterfield?
From about Oct 8 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 7 (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 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Butterfield's scale — its 7a band and its 220-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Butterfield'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 Butterfield’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Butterfield's own scale — its own ~220-day season between 28°F freezes, the 296 acres it covers and 211 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Butterfield's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Butterfield's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 7 and the ~220-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 211 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Butterfield, the closest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.8 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Butterfield's boundary and the 296 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~220-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Butterfield's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Butterfield's 296 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Barry County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Barry 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 Barry County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Butterfield's 296 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Butterfield you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 296 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.8 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 Butterfield-wide figureread your own land →
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