California, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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 California, 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 California 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 California — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
California — the short answer
California, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 221 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 29
- 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
- ~221
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 2K 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 California's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against California's 221-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in California
Each reading below is measured for California itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCalifornia runs about 221 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
MeasuredCalifornia 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 California is in
California sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at California's own centroid rather than borrowed from Moniteau County.
What Grows in California
Every plant below cleared California's own zone 6b and its 221-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in California?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 29 (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 California
Survey cells within 31 miles of California checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 316 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near California
Closest first, within ~10 miles of California. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #1246Underground Storage Tanks · 250 ft
- T45N R15W 22ADB1Nitrate · 350 ft
- CALIFORNIA STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- PUTNAM CHEVROLET PONTIAC COUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- BOONSLICKUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- BREAK TIME #3008Underground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- LARRY'S AMOCO STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- 50/50 MFA SERVICE (FORMER BOBS MFA)Underground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- T45N R15W 28ABC1Nitrate · 1300 ft
- R-1 BUS MAINTENANCE SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- G F CONVENIENCE CALIFORNIAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- K. A. DUTCHER PAINT & VARNISH COBrownfields · 1600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from California'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 California.
Total Sites
102
within ~10 miles of California
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of California
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of California
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around California, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of California — Mining (46 sites) and CAFO (3 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check your specific parcel in California
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 California average
Your land is one point inside California
Everything above resolves to California as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 California Average
California Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across California
- ●One soil character for all of California
- ●Frost dates read at California's scale: Mar 29 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not California's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in California
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in California, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that California averages can't show:
We read public map data around California — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the California average
How we know this about California
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 California’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 California
When does frost risk typically end in California?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in California typically lands around Mar 29, 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 19.
When is the first frost in California?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in California 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 221 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in California?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, California sees about 221 frost-free days — roughly Mar 29 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 19 to Oct 22, about 186 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in California?
The federal record around California runs heavier than most — 102 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (46), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 California?
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 California's scale — its 6b band and its 221-day season. Your yard writes its own version of California'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 California’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at California's own scale — its own ~221-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,474 acres it covers and 102 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- California's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- California's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 29 and Nov 5 and the ~221-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 102 documented contamination sites on the federal record near California, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- California's boundary and the 2,474 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~221-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at California's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around California 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 California's 2,474 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Moniteau County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Moniteau 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 Moniteau County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among California's 2,474 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of California you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,474 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 California-wide figureread your own land →
More in Missouri
Wider growing context
What grows across MissouriCalifornia sits outside our named growing regions, so Missouri as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides