Nodaway County, in Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
The conditions favor cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Nodaway County lies within the North Missouri Glaciated Plains (Green Hills) — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Nodaway County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Nodaway 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 Nodaway County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Nodaway County — the short answer
Nodaway County, Missouri: USDA zone 5b, about 204 days between hard freezes, across 561K acres.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~204
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 561K 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 5b is Nodaway County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Nodaway County's 204-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Nodaway County
Across a year, Nodaway County accumulates about 3,214 growing degree days above 50°F, about 539 fewer than the middle Missouri county — ahead of 5 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 Nodaway County
Across Nodaway County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Sharpsburg, Lamoni, and Shelby are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silty clay loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.2–6.4, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
25%
Hydric soils
11%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Nodaway County
The USDA soil survey maps 38% of Nodaway County as well drained — but another 62% drains differently: 26% moderately well drained, 25% somewhat poorly drained.
Sharpsburg is the most extensive named soil at 22% of mapped acres, then Lamoni (11%) and Shelby (8%).
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 Nodaway County
Each reading below is measured for Nodaway 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 Nodaway 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 Nodaway County runs about pH 6.2–6.4, 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
MeasuredNodaway County runs about 204 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
MeasuredNodaway County sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b.
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 Nodaway County is in
Nodaway County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Western Corn Belt Plains (91%) and Central Irregular Plains (9%). 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 Nodaway County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Nodaway County's own USDA zone 5b and its own 204-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 Nodaway County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 27 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Nodaway County
- Japanese beetle1 documented records
- monarch butterfly12 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Nodaway County
USGS estimates 324,931 lb of Glyphosate on Nodaway County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (156,143 lb) and Atrazine (138,786 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 Nodaway County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Nodaway County — 114 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 9 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Nodaway County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Nodaway County
Closest first, across Nodaway County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- NORTHWEST MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- NATIONAL GUARD 1ST BN, 129TH FAUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #811Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- NORTHWEST MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY MARYVILLEBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- IMPERIAL SUPER GASUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- NW TAXI & DETAIL SHOP FORMER FLOREA CONOCO SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- MARYVILLE ARMORYBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- FINISH LINEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- RETIRED GENERATING PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- BEARCAT EXPRESSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- MARYVILLE UPTOWNUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- DEW OIL COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Nodaway 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 Nodaway County.
Total Sites
114
across Nodaway County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
9 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Nodaway County
Severity Distribution
across Nodaway County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Nodaway County, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 9 sites across Nodaway County. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Nodaway 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 Nodaway County average
Your land is one point inside Nodaway County
Everything above resolves to Nodaway County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 561K 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 Nodaway County Average
Nodaway County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Nodaway County
- ●One soil character for all of Nodaway County
- ●Frost dates read at Nodaway County's scale: Apr 6 to Oct 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Nodaway County's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Nodaway County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Nodaway County, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Nodaway County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Nodaway County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Nodaway County average
How we know this about Nodaway 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 Nodaway County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Nodaway County
When does frost risk typically end in Nodaway County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Nodaway County typically lands around Apr 6, 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 27.
How long is the growing season in Nodaway County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Nodaway County sees about 204 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 13, about 169 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Nodaway County?
The federal record around Nodaway County shows 114 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (57), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
Everything above is measured at Nodaway County's scale — its 5b band and its 204-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Nodaway 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 Nodaway County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Nodaway County's own scale — its own ~204-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 114 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Nodaway County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Nodaway County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~204-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Nodaway CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 114 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Nodaway County's boundary and the 561,257 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~204-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Nodaway County spans, Western Corn Belt Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Nodaway County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Nodaway 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 Nodaway County — the ~204 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 Nodaway County's 561,257 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 114 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 Nodaway Countyread your own land →