Barton County, in Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Barton County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Barton County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Barton County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Barton County — the short answer
Barton County, Missouri: USDA zone 7a, about 226 days between hard freezes, across 379K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~226
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 379K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 Barton County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Barton County's 226-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Barton County
Across a year, Barton County accumulates about 4,046 growing degree days above 50°F, about 293 more than the middle Missouri county — ahead of 101 of Missouri’s 115 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Barton County
Across Barton County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Parsons, Barden, and Barco are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally somewhat poorly drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.6–6.1, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Somewhat poorly drained
Prime farmland
25%
Hydric soils
2%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Barton County
The USDA soil survey maps 41% of Barton County as somewhat poorly drained — but another 59% drains differently: 31% moderately well drained, 26% well drained.
Parsons is the most extensive named soil at 31% of mapped acres, then Barden (19%) and Barco (13%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Barton County
Each reading below is measured for Barton County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Barton County are somewhat poorly drained, in hydrologic group D — ground that sheds water slowly.
Beds can stay saturated for days after heavy rain, and the roots of most vegetables, berries, and fruit trees suffocate or rot in soil that never drains.
Raised beds or mounded rows lift roots above the wet zone; choose water-tolerant crops for the lowest spots.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Barton County runs about pH 5.6–6.1, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredBarton County runs about 226 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
MeasuredBarton County 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 Barton County is in
Barton County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Central Irregular Plains (93%) and Ozark Highlands (7%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Barton County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Barton County's own USDA zone 7a and its own 226-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile.
Is it too late to plant in Barton County?
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 27; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 27 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 8 — 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.
Documented around Barton County
- monarch butterfly4 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Barton County
USGS estimates 264,917 lb of Glyphosate on Barton County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (65,499 lb) and Atrazine (52,362 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Barton County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Barton County — 107 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 5 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
There's a meaningful federal record across Barton County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Barton County
Closest first, across Barton County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- T32N R31W 28CAC1Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- T32N R31W 29DBD1Nitrate · 1.1 mi
- BARTON COUNTY ELEC COOPERATIVE, INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- T32N R31W 17AAA1Nitrate · 1.8 mi
- CITY OF LAMAR AIRPORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- T32N R31W 26BDDNitrate · 2.0 mi
- MURPHY USA #7076Underground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- WALMART SUPERCENTER #338Brownfields · 2.4 mi
- COX BARTON COUNTY HOSPITAL DBA COXHELATHBrownfields · 2.5 mi
- LAMAR MAINT LOTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- REDNECK OUTDOOR PRODUCTSToxics Release Inventory · 2.9 mi
- LAMAR NORTH PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 3.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Barton County'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 Barton County.
Total Sites
107
across Barton County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
5 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Barton County
Severity Distribution
across Barton County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Barton County, two things run higher than the national average across Barton County — CAFO (3 sites) and Nitrate (42 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Barton County
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 Barton County average
Your land is one point inside Barton County
Everything above resolves to Barton County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 379K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Barton County Average
Barton County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Barton County
- ●One soil character for all of Barton County
- ●Frost dates read at Barton County's scale: Mar 27 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Barton County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Barton County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Barton County, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Barton County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Barton County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Barton County average
How we know this about Barton County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Barton County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Barton County
When does frost risk typically end in Barton County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Barton County typically lands around Mar 27, 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 17.
How long is the growing season in Barton County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Barton County sees about 226 frost-free days — roughly Mar 27 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 17 to Oct 25, about 191 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Barton County?
The federal record around Barton County is a meaningful one — 107 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (42), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.5 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
Everything above is measured at Barton County's scale — its 7a band and its 226-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Barton County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Missouri's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Barton County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Barton County's own scale — its own ~226-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 107 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Barton County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Barton County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~226-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Barton CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 107 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 0.5 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Barton County's boundary and the 378,899 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~226-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Barton County spans, Central Irregular Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Barton County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Barton County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Missouri grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Missouri
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Barton County — the ~226 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Barton County's 378,899 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 107 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Barton Countyread your own land →