Dixon, 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.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Dixon, 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 Dixon 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 Dixon — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Dixon — the short answer
Dixon, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 226 days between hard freezes, across 668 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~226
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 668 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 Dixon's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Dixon's 226-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Dixon
Each reading below is measured for Dixon itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDixon runs about 226 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
MeasuredDixon 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 Dixon is in
Dixon sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Dixon's own centroid rather than borrowed from Pulaski County.
What Grows in Dixon
Every plant below cleared Dixon's own zone 6b and its 226-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Dixon?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 7 — 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 Dixon
Survey cells within 31 miles of Dixon checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 324 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Dixon
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Dixon. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #1545Underground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- DIXON SINCLAIRUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- T38N R11W 26ADA1Nitrate · 1100 ft
- ROBERT L. PERKINSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- T38N R11W 26DBNitrate · 2000 ft
- ALLTEL STORAGE BUILDINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- BROWN SHOE COToxics Release Inventory · 2600 ft
- COUNTRY MART EXPRESSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- BILL CROSS ENTERPRISES INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- well OZ-20Nitrate · 2.3 mi
- DIXON MAINT LOTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- THORNSBERRY STANDARD SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Dixon'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 Dixon.
Total Sites
29
within ~10 miles of Dixon
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Dixon
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Dixon
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Dixon, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 12 sites within ~10 miles of Dixon. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Dixon
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 Dixon average
Your land is one point inside Dixon
Everything above resolves to Dixon as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 668 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 Dixon Average
Dixon Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Dixon
- ●One soil character for all of Dixon
- ●Frost dates read at Dixon's scale: Mar 26 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Dixon's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Dixon
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Dixon, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Dixon averages can't show:
We read public map data around Dixon — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Dixon average
How we know this about Dixon
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 Dixon’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 Dixon
When does frost risk typically end in Dixon?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Dixon typically lands around Mar 26, 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 16.
When is the first frost in Dixon?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Dixon typically arrives around Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 24, so the watching starts about Oct 8 — about 226 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Dixon?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Dixon sees about 226 frost-free days — roughly Mar 26 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 16 to Oct 24, about 191 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Dixon?
The federal record around Dixon shows 29 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (13), 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Dixon?
From about Oct 8 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 7 (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 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Dixon's scale — its 6b band and its 226-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Dixon'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 Dixon’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Dixon's own scale — its own ~226-day season between 28°F freezes, the 668 acres it covers and 29 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Dixon's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Dixon's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 26 and Nov 7 and the ~226-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 29 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Dixon, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Dixon's boundary and the 668 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~226-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Dixon's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Dixon 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 Dixon's 668 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 Dixon's 668 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Dixon you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 668 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Dixon-wide figureread your own land →
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