Crocker, 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.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Crocker, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Crocker lot. 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 Crocker — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Crocker — the short answer
Crocker, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 222 days between hard freezes, across 790 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~222
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 790 acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 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 Crocker's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Crocker's 222-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Crocker
Each reading below is measured for Crocker itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCrocker runs about 222 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
MeasuredCrocker 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 Crocker is in
Crocker sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Crocker's own centroid rather than borrowed from Pulaski County.
What Grows in Crocker
Every plant below cleared Crocker's own zone 6b and its 222-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Crocker?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 5 — 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 Crocker
Survey cells within 31 miles of Crocker checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 332 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Crocker
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Crocker. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- WELLS STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- MPC # 1038Brownfields · 1000 ft
- T37N R12W 08DBA1Nitrate · 1300 ft
- T37N R12W 17ABANitrate · 1300 ft
- BILL'S 66 SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- LAKESIDE TRAILER MFG INCBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- GAN, RICHARDCAFO · 2.4 mi
- THORNSBERRY STANDARD SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- SWEDEBORG GAS N MOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- RIEMENSNIDER, RANDYCAFO · 5.5 mi
- IBERIA, MO STOCKPILEToxics Release Inventory · 6.0 mi
- MARATHON PIPE LINE INCBrownfields · 6.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Crocker'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 Crocker.
Total Sites
89
within ~10 miles of Crocker
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Crocker
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Crocker
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Crocker, CAFO runs higher than the national average — 5 sites within ~10 miles of Crocker. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check your specific parcel in Crocker
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 Crocker average
Your land is one point inside Crocker
Everything above resolves to Crocker as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 790 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 city 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 local average.
Your Lot vs the Crocker Average
Crocker Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Crocker
- ●One soil character for all of Crocker
- ●Frost dates read at Crocker's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Crocker's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Crocker
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Crocker, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Crocker averages can't show:
We read public map data around Crocker — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Crocker average
How we know this about Crocker
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Crocker’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Crocker
When does frost risk typically end in Crocker?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Crocker typically lands around Mar 28, 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 18.
When is the first frost in Crocker?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Crocker typically arrives around Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 22, so the watching starts about Oct 6 — about 222 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Crocker?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Crocker sees about 222 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Oct 22, about 187 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Crocker?
The federal record around Crocker shows 89 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (46), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Crocker?
From about Oct 6 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Nov 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Nov 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Crocker's scale — its 6b band and its 222-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Crocker's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Crocker’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Crocker's own scale — its own ~222-day season between 28°F freezes, the 790 acres it covers and 89 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Crocker's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Crocker's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 5 and the ~222-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 89 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Crocker, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Crocker's boundary and the 790 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~222-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Crocker's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Crocker checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Crocker's 790 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Pulaski County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Pulaski County
- The growing challenges every Missouri grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Missouri
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Pulaski County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Crocker's 790 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Crocker you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 790 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Crocker-wide figureread your own land →
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