Doe Run, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
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 Doe Run, 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 Doe Run 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 Doe Run — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Doe Run — the short answer
Doe Run, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 213 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~213
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 Doe Run's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Doe Run's 213-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Doe Run
Each reading below is measured for Doe Run itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDoe Run 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
MeasuredDoe Run 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 Doe Run is in
Doe Run sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Doe Run's own centroid rather than borrowed from St. Francois County.
What Grows in Doe Run
Every plant below cleared Doe Run's own zone 6b and its 213-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Doe Run?
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 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. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
What's on the federal record near Doe Run
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Doe Run. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Shaft Number Fourdoe Run Lead CoMining · 700 ft
- Doe RunMining · 1900 ft
- Shaft Number ElevenMining · 2100 ft
- Shaft Number TwoMining · 2500 ft
- DOE RUN MINE TAILINGSSuperfund · 0.5 mi
- SHERRYSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Unknown - LeadMining · 0.7 mi
- Shaft Number Twodoe Run Lead CoMining · 1.9 mi
- Mine Number 25doe Run Lead CoMining · 2.0 mi
- MFA FERTILIZER PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- T35N R05E 01 1Nitrate · 2.7 mi
- SRG GLOBAL COATINGS LLCToxics Release Inventory · 2.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Doe Run'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 Doe Run.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Doe Run
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Doe Run
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Doe Run, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Doe Run — Mining (74 sites) and Superfund (8 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Doe Run
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 Doe Run average
Your land is one point inside Doe Run
Everything above resolves to Doe Run as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 town 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 Doe Run Average
Doe Run Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Doe Run
- ●One soil character for all of Doe Run
- ●Frost dates read at Doe Run's scale: Mar 31 to Oct 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Doe Run's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Doe Run
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Doe Run, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Doe Run averages can't show:
We read public map data around Doe Run — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Doe Run average
How we know this about Doe Run
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Doe Run’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 town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-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 Doe Run
When does frost risk typically end in Doe Run?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Doe Run 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.
When is the first frost in Doe Run?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Doe Run typically arrives around Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 16, so the watching starts about Sep 30 — about 213 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Doe Run?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Doe Run 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 Doe Run?
The federal record around Doe Run runs heavier than most — 339 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (116), the nearest Mining record about 0.1 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Doe Run?
From about Sep 30 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 Oct 30 (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 Oct 30. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Doe Run's scale — its 6b band and its 213-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Doe Run'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 Doe Run’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Doe Run's own scale — its own ~213-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,542 acres it covers and 339 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Doe Run's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Doe Run's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Oct 30 and the ~213-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 339 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Doe Run, the closest Mining record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Doe Run's boundary and the 1,542 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~213-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Doe Run's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Doe Run's 1,542 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom St. Francois County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom St. Francois 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 St. Francois County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Doe Run's 1,542 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Doe Run you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,542 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Mining 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 Doe Run-wide figureread your own land →
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