Vernon County, in Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Expect cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Vernon County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Vernon 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 Vernon County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Vernon County — the short answer
Vernon County, Missouri: USDA zone 7a, about 230 days between hard freezes, across 529K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~230
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 529K 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 7a is Vernon County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Vernon County's 230-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Vernon County
Across a year, Vernon County accumulates about 4,001 growing degree days above 50°F, about 248 more than the middle Missouri county — ahead of 98 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 Vernon County
Across Vernon County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Barden, Parsons, and Barco are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.3–6.1, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Moderately well drained
Prime farmland
32%
Hydric soils
6%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Vernon County
The USDA soil survey maps 34% of Vernon County as moderately well drained — but another 66% drains differently: 33% well drained, 25% somewhat poorly drained.
Barden is the most extensive named soil at 24% of mapped acres, then Parsons (16%) and Barco (15%).
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 Vernon County
Each reading below is measured for Vernon 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 Vernon 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 Vernon County runs about pH 5.3–6.1, 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
MeasuredVernon County runs about 230 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
MeasuredVernon County sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Vernon County is in
Vernon County sits in the Central Irregular Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Vernon County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Vernon County's own USDA zone 7a and its own 230-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 Vernon County?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 25 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 10 — 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 Vernon County
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Vernon County
USGS estimates 163,145 lb of Glyphosate on Vernon County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (86,519 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (79,523 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 Vernon County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Vernon County — 160 documented sites across 8 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 Vernon 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 Vernon County
Closest first, across Vernon County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- L & S BAKER TIRE COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- LBZ LLC PRECISION AERO SERVICESToxics Release Inventory · 0.5 mi
- PLATINUM AEROSTRUCTURESToxics Release Inventory · 0.5 mi
- PLATINUM AEROSTRUCTURESBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- NEVADA FUEL MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- FORMER HARRY SMITH STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- HOT SPOTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- UNION PACIFICUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #3343Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- JAMES LUTES PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- FORMER HOWARD HENDERSHOT STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- MCCOY STANDARDUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Vernon 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 Vernon County.
Total Sites
160
across Vernon County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Severity Distribution
across Vernon County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Vernon County, two things run higher than the national average across Vernon County — CAFO (8 sites) and Nitrate (68 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Vernon 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 Vernon County average
Your land is one point inside Vernon County
Everything above resolves to Vernon County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 529K 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 Vernon County Average
Vernon County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Vernon County
- ●One soil character for all of Vernon County
- ●Frost dates read at Vernon County's scale: Mar 25 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Vernon County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Vernon County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Vernon County, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Vernon County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Vernon County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Vernon County average
How we know this about Vernon 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 Vernon County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Vernon County
When does frost risk typically end in Vernon County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Vernon County typically lands around Mar 25, 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 15.
How long is the growing season in Vernon County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Vernon County sees about 230 frost-free days — roughly Mar 25 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 15 to Oct 27, about 195 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Vernon County?
The federal record around Vernon County is a meaningful one — 160 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (68), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Vernon County's scale — its 7a band and its 230-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Vernon 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 Vernon County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Vernon County's own scale — its own ~230-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 160 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Vernon County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Vernon County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~230-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Vernon CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 160 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Vernon County's boundary and the 528,890 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~230-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Vernon County sitting wholly inside the Central Irregular PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Vernon County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Vernon 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 Vernon County — the ~230 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 Vernon County's 528,890 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 160 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 Vernon Countyread your own land →