St. Francois 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.
St. Francois 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
St. Francois County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across St. Francois 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 St. Francois County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
St. Francois County — the short answer
St. Francois County, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 213 days between hard freezes, across 289K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~213
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 289K 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 St. Francois County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against St. Francois County's 213-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in St. Francois County
Across a year, St. Francois County accumulates about 3,691 growing degree days above 50°F, about 62 fewer than the middle Missouri county — ahead of 46 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 St. Francois County
Across St. Francois County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Goss, Caneyville, and Crider are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.1–6.4, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
5%
Hydric soils
2%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across St. Francois County
The USDA soil survey maps 50% of St. Francois County as well drained — but another 49% drains differently: 38% moderately well drained, 8% somewhat excessively drained.
Goss is the most extensive named soil at 13% of mapped acres, then Caneyville (12%) and Crider (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 St. Francois County
Each reading below is measured for St. Francois 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 St. Francois 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 St. Francois County runs about pH 5.1–6.4, 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
MeasuredSt. Francois County runs about 213 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
MeasuredSt. Francois 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 St. Francois County is in
St. Francois 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 St. Francois County
We scored all 1,086 plants against St. Francois County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 213-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 St. Francois County?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 31 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 30 — 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.
What gets applied to farmland in St. Francois County
USGS estimates 7,186 lb of Glyphosate on St. Francois County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (2,920 lb) and Atrazine (1,822 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 St. Francois County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across St. Francois County — 480 documented sites across 8 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 15 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
St. Francois 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 St. Francois County
Closest first, across St. Francois County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FORMER NORTHTOWN STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- COUNTRYWAY PARTNERSHIP DBA CROWN MOTORSBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- SAM SCISM MOTORSBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- Mine Number Ninefederal Lead CoMining · 1.3 mi
- COUNTRY WAY NISSAN CHRYSLERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- SJMW 08-52Nitrate · 1.5 mi
- SJMW 08-20Nitrate · 1.5 mi
- SJMW 08-11Nitrate · 1.5 mi
- St Joe LY 01-2Nitrate · 1.5 mi
- SJMW 01-60Nitrate · 1.5 mi
- SJMW 01-42Nitrate · 1.5 mi
- Mine Number TenMining · 1.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from St. Francois 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 St. Francois County.
Sources Checked
across St. Francois County
Severity Distribution
across St. Francois County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around St. Francois County, two things run higher than the national average across St. Francois County — Mining (146 sites) and Superfund (15 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in St. Francois 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 St. Francois County average
Your land is one point inside St. Francois County
Everything above resolves to St. Francois County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 289K 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 St. Francois County Average
St. Francois County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across St. Francois County
- ●One soil character for all of St. Francois County
- ●Frost dates read at St. Francois County's scale: Mar 31 to Oct 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not St. Francois County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in St. Francois County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in St. Francois County, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that St. Francois County averages can't show:
We read public map data around St. Francois County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the St. Francois County average
How we know this about St. Francois 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 St. Francois County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about St. Francois County
When does frost risk typically end in St. Francois County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in St. Francois County typically lands around Mar 31, 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 21.
How long is the growing season in St. Francois County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, St. Francois County sees about 213 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 16, about 178 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in St. Francois County?
The federal record around St. Francois County runs heavier than most — 480 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (146), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.1 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 St. Francois County's scale — its 6b band and its 213-day season. Your yard writes its own version of St. Francois 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 St. Francois County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at St. Francois County's own scale — its own ~213-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 480 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- St. Francois County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- St. Francois County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~213-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in St. Francois CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 480 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.1 miles outFederal environmental registers
- St. Francois County's boundary and the 289,207 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~213-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- St. Francois County sitting wholly inside the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto St. Francois 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 St. Francois County — the ~213 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 St. Francois County's 289,207 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 480 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 St. Francois Countyread your own land →