Morgan County, in Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Morgan 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
Morgan County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Morgan 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 Morgan County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Morgan County — the short answer
Morgan County, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 224 days between hard freezes, across 382K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~224
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 382K 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 6b is Morgan County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Morgan County's 224-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Morgan County
Across a year, Morgan County accumulates about 3,765 growing degree days above 50°F, about 12 more than the middle Missouri county — ahead of 58 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 Morgan County
Across Morgan County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Goss, Gravois, and Niangua are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.5–6.5, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
3%
Hydric soils
6%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Morgan County
The USDA soil survey maps 50% of Morgan County as well drained — but another 50% drains differently: 21% moderately well drained, 17% somewhat poorly drained.
Goss is the most extensive named soil at 22% of mapped acres, then Gravois (18%) and Niangua (11%).
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 Morgan County
Each reading below is measured for Morgan 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 Morgan 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 Morgan County runs about pH 5.5–6.5, 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
MeasuredMorgan County runs about 224 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
MeasuredMorgan County 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 Morgan County is in
Morgan 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 Morgan County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Morgan County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 224-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 Morgan County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. 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 6 — 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 Morgan County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Morgan County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 338 miles off. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly2 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Morgan County
USGS estimates 15,760 lb of Glyphosate on Morgan County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (7,296 lb) and Atrazine (5,935 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 Morgan County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Morgan County — 238 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Morgan 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 Morgan County
Closest first, across Morgan County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Sheets Prospect No 1 & 2Mining · 0.5 mi
- OZARK READY MIX - VERSAILLESToxics Release Inventory · 0.7 mi
- GATES RUBBER COMPANYToxics Release Inventory · 0.8 mi
- GATES RUBBER COMPANYBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- DIXON TICONDEROGA COMPANYToxics Release Inventory · 1.0 mi
- WALMART SUPERCENTER #357Brownfields · 1.1 mi
- MORGAN COUNTY R-II BUS BARNUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- VERSAILLES EAGLE STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- KLEIN JCT SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- VERSAILLES JIFFY STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #1115Underground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- JIM'S DX STATION TOTALUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Morgan 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 Morgan County.
Total Sites
238
across Morgan County
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Severity Distribution
across Morgan County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Morgan County, two things run higher than the national average across Morgan County — CAFO (26 sites) and Mining (133 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.
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 Morgan 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 Morgan County average
Your land is one point inside Morgan County
Everything above resolves to Morgan County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 382K 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 Morgan County Average
Morgan County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Morgan County
- ●One soil character for all of Morgan County
- ●Frost dates read at Morgan County's scale: Mar 27 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Morgan County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Morgan County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Morgan County, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Morgan County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Morgan County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Morgan County average
How we know this about Morgan 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 Morgan County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Morgan County
When does frost risk typically end in Morgan County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Morgan 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 Morgan County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Morgan County sees about 224 frost-free days — roughly Mar 27 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 17 to Oct 23, about 189 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Morgan County?
The federal record around Morgan County runs heavier than most — 238 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (133), the nearest Mining record about 0.5 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 Morgan County's scale — its 6b band and its 224-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Morgan 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 Morgan County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Morgan County's own scale — its own ~224-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 238 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Morgan County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Morgan County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~224-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Morgan CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 238 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Mining record about 0.5 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Morgan County's boundary and the 382,486 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~224-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Morgan County sitting wholly inside the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Morgan County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Morgan 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 Morgan County — the ~224 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 Morgan County's 382,486 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 238 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 Morgan Countyread your own land →