Crawford County, in Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
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.
Crawford County lies within the Ozarks — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Crawford County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Crawford 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 Crawford County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Crawford County — the short answer
Crawford County, Missouri: USDA zone 6a, about 192 days between hard freezes, across 475K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~192
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 475K 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 6a is Crawford County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Crawford County's 192-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Crawford County
Across a year, Crawford County accumulates about 3,547 growing degree days above 50°F, about 206 fewer than the middle Missouri county — ahead of 28 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 Crawford County
Across Crawford County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Rueter, Alred, and Bender are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.9–6.0, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
2%
Hydric soils
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Crawford County
The USDA soil survey maps 51% of Crawford County as well drained — but another 49% drains differently: 28% moderately well drained, 16% somewhat excessively drained.
Rueter is the most extensive named soil at 13% of mapped acres, then Alred (13%) and Bender (9%).
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 Crawford County
Each reading below is measured for Crawford 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 Crawford County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Crawford County runs about pH 4.9–6.0, 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
MeasuredCrawford County runs about 192 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredCrawford County sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Crawford County is in
Crawford County sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Crawford County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Crawford County's own USDA zone 6a and its own 192-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 Crawford County?
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 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 19 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Even past midsummer there is room for a true fall garden here, and garlic planted near the close carries the momentum into next year.
Documented around Crawford County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Crawford County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 284 miles off. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly5 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Crawford County
USGS estimates 4,140 lb of Glyphosate on Crawford County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (3,727 lb) and Atrazine (1,585 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 Crawford County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Crawford County — 199 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Crawford County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Crawford County
Closest first, across Crawford County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Halbert's DiggingsMining · 1.2 mi
- FORMER POGUES GROCERY & GASUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- TOWN & COUNTRY MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- ARNESON TIMBER COMPANY INCToxics Release Inventory · 1.9 mi
- MILL SPRING MINI MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- T38N R04W 34CAB1Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- SCHWIEDER FORDUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- STEELVILLE MANUFACTURING COMPANY BLDG 2Brownfields · 2.2 mi
- STEELVILLEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- STEELVILLE MAINT LOTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- T38N R04W 34BBB1Nitrate · 2.2 mi
- T38N R04W 34CCNitrate · 2.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Crawford 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 Crawford County.
Total Sites
199
across Crawford County
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Crawford County
Severity Distribution
across Crawford County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Crawford County, two things run higher than the national average across Crawford County — Mining (60 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (13 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Crawford 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 Crawford County average
Your land is one point inside Crawford County
Everything above resolves to Crawford County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 475K 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 Crawford County Average
Crawford County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Crawford County
- ●One soil character for all of Crawford County
- ●Frost dates read at Crawford County's scale: Apr 10 to Oct 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Crawford County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Crawford County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Crawford County, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Crawford County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Crawford County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Crawford County average
How we know this about Crawford 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 Crawford County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Crawford County
When does frost risk typically end in Crawford County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Crawford County typically lands around Apr 10, 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 May 1.
How long is the growing season in Crawford County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Crawford County sees about 192 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Oct 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Oct 5, about 157 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Crawford County?
The federal record around Crawford County runs heavier than most — 199 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (67), the nearest Mining record about 1.2 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.
Everything above is measured at Crawford County's scale — its 6a band and its 192-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Crawford 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 Crawford County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Crawford County's own scale — its own ~192-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 199 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Crawford County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Crawford County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~192-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Crawford CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 199 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Mining record about 1.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Crawford County's boundary and the 475,185 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~192-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Crawford County sitting wholly inside the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Crawford County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Crawford 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 Crawford County — the ~192 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 Crawford County's 475,185 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 199 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 Crawford Countyread your own land →