Phelps County, in Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
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.
Phelps 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
Phelps County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Phelps 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 Phelps County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Phelps County — the short answer
Phelps County, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 197 days between hard freezes, across 430K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~197
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 430K 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 Phelps County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Phelps County's 197-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Phelps County
Across a year, Phelps County accumulates about 3,643 growing degree days above 50°F, about 110 fewer than the middle Missouri county — ahead of 40 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 Phelps County
Across Phelps County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Bender, Union, and Bendavis are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.7–6.1, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Moderately well drained
Prime farmland
2%
Hydric soils
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Phelps County
The USDA soil survey maps 37% of Phelps County as moderately well drained — but another 63% drains differently: 31% well drained, 18% somewhat excessively drained.
Bender is the most extensive named soil at 20% of mapped acres, then Union (7%) and Bendavis (6%).
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 Phelps County
Each reading below is measured for Phelps 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 Phelps County are moderately well drained, in hydrologic group D — roughly the middle of the drainage range.
This is close to the middle most vegetables prefer: it holds enough water to carry a crop between rains without staying waterlogged. The catch is that a wet spring or a low corner can still tip it soggy.
Plant on the site as-is for most crops, but keep the lowest, slowest-draining beds for moisture-tolerant plantings.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Phelps County runs about pH 4.7–6.1, 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
MeasuredPhelps County runs about 197 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
MeasuredPhelps 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 Phelps County is in
Phelps 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 Phelps County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Phelps County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 197-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 Phelps 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 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 7 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 21 — 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 Phelps County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Phelps County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 305 miles off. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle2 documented records
- monarch butterfly10 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Phelps County
USGS estimates 3,881 lb of 2,4-d on Phelps County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (2,703 lb) and Triclopyr (1,202 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 Phelps County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Phelps County — 266 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 7 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
There's a meaningful federal record across Phelps 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 Phelps County
Closest first, across Phelps County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Fourche A Courtois MineMining · 2.2 mi
- T36N R08W 01AAA1Nitrate · 2.3 mi
- ROLLA PWSPFAS · 2.6 mi
- DON MAGGI CONSTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- DO DROP IN #7281Underground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
- DR. MARTIUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.9 mi
- T37N R08W 15DDD1Nitrate · 3.9 mi
- KEY SPORT PRINTING DIVBrownfields · 4.0 mi
- UnkMining · 4.1 mi
- KMART # 3934Brownfields · 4.3 mi
- T37N R07W 19BBC1Nitrate · 4.3 mi
- CALIBER COLLISION CENTER ROLLA 2407Brownfields · 4.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Phelps 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 Phelps County.
Total Sites
266
across Phelps County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
7 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Phelps County
Severity Distribution
across Phelps County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Phelps County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 92 sites across Phelps County. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Phelps 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 Phelps County average
Your land is one point inside Phelps County
Everything above resolves to Phelps County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 430K 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 Phelps County Average
Phelps County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Phelps County
- ●One soil character for all of Phelps County
- ●Frost dates read at Phelps County's scale: Apr 7 to Oct 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Phelps County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Phelps County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Phelps County, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Phelps County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Phelps County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Phelps County average
How we know this about Phelps 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 Phelps County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Phelps County
When does frost risk typically end in Phelps County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Phelps County typically lands around Apr 7, 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 28.
How long is the growing season in Phelps County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Phelps County sees about 197 frost-free days — roughly Apr 7 through Oct 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 28 to Oct 7, about 162 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Phelps County?
The federal record around Phelps County is a meaningful one — 266 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (118), the nearest Mining record about 2.2 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 Phelps County's scale — its 6b band and its 197-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Phelps 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 Phelps County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Phelps County's own scale — its own ~197-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 266 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Phelps County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Phelps County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~197-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Phelps CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 266 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Mining record about 2.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Phelps County's boundary and the 429,943 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~197-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Phelps County sitting wholly inside the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Phelps County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Phelps 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 Phelps County — the ~197 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 Phelps County's 429,943 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 266 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 Phelps Countyread your own land →