Lewis County, in Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — 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, lavender, 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
Lewis County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Lewis 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 Lewis County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Lewis County — the short answer
Lewis County, Missouri: USDA zone 6a, about 218 days between hard freezes, across 323K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~218
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 323K 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 Lewis County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lewis County's 218-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Lewis County
Across a year, Lewis County accumulates about 3,482 growing degree days above 50°F, about 271 fewer than the middle Missouri county — ahead of 23 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 Lewis County
Across Lewis County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Lindley, Kilwinning, and Keswick are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally somewhat poorly drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.9–7.0, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Somewhat poorly drained
Prime farmland
12%
Hydric soils
32%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Lewis County
The USDA soil survey maps 35% of Lewis County as somewhat poorly drained — but another 65% drains differently: 30% poorly drained, 17% well drained.
Lindley is the most extensive named soil at 14% of mapped acres, then Kilwinning (13%) and Keswick (12%).
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 Lewis County
Each reading below is measured for Lewis 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 Lewis 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 Lewis County runs about pH 5.9–7.0, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredLewis County runs about 218 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
MeasuredLewis 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 Lewis County is in
Lewis County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Central Irregular Plains (92%) and Interior River Valleys and Hills (8%). 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 Lewis County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Lewis County's own USDA zone 6a and its own 218-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 Lewis 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 2; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 30 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 3 — 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 Lewis County
- monarch butterfly21 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Lewis County
USGS estimates 118,363 lb of Atrazine on Lewis County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (78,407 lb) and Acetochlor (64,437 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 Lewis County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Lewis County — 106 documented sites across 6 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.
There's a meaningful federal record across Lewis 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 Lewis County
Closest first, across Lewis County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MIKES 66Underground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- T61N R07W 06DCA1Nitrate · 1.9 mi
- MONTICELLO MAINT LOTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- T61N R08W 01BCD1Nitrate · 2.2 mi
- MCROBERTS FARM INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- CORKS SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- THE FILLIN STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- LEWISTOWN SCHOOL & HIGHLAND H.S.Underground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- T62N R07W 30BBD1Nitrate · 4.2 mi
- COUNTY MARKET EXPRESS #788Underground Storage Tanks · 4.4 mi
- HEETCO STORAGE LOTUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.4 mi
- MCKENZIE AUTOMOTIVE & GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lewis 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 Lewis County.
Total Sites
106
across Lewis County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Lewis County
Severity Distribution
across Lewis County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lewis County, two things run higher than the national average across Lewis County — CAFO (3 sites) and Nitrate (46 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
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 Lewis 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 Lewis County average
Your land is one point inside Lewis County
Everything above resolves to Lewis County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 323K 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 Lewis County Average
Lewis County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Lewis County
- ●One soil character for all of Lewis County
- ●Frost dates read at Lewis County's scale: Mar 30 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lewis County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Lewis County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lewis County, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lewis County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lewis County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lewis County average
How we know this about Lewis 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 Lewis County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Lewis County
When does frost risk typically end in Lewis County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lewis County typically lands around Mar 30, 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 20.
How long is the growing season in Lewis County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lewis County sees about 218 frost-free days — roughly Mar 30 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 20 to Oct 20, about 183 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lewis County?
The federal record around Lewis County is a meaningful one — 106 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (51), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.6 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 Lewis County's scale — its 6a band and its 218-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lewis 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 Lewis County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Lewis County's own scale — its own ~218-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 106 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lewis County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lewis County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~218-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Lewis CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 106 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.6 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Lewis County's boundary and the 323,211 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~218-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Lewis County spans, Central Irregular Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Lewis County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Lewis 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 Lewis County — the ~218 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 Lewis County's 323,211 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 106 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 Lewis Countyread your own land →