Dudley, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Dudley, 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 Dudley 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 Dudley — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Dudley — the short answer
Dudley, Missouri: USDA zone 7b, about 247 days between hard freezes, across 249 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~247
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 249 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 7b is Dudley's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Dudley's 247-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Dudley
Each reading below is measured for Dudley itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDudley runs about 247 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
MeasuredDudley sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Dudley is in
Dudley sits in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Dudley's own centroid rather than borrowed from Stoddard County.
What Grows in Dudley
Every plant below cleared Dudley's own zone 7b and its 247-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Dudley?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 17; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 17 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 19 — 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 Dudley
Survey cells within 31 miles of Dudley checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 194 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Dudley
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Dudley. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BAILEY'S GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- W. W. WOOD PRODUCTS INC.Brownfields · 1400 ft
- T25N R09E 28Nitrate · 1400 ft
- W. W. WOOD PRODUCTS DUDLEYToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- HANOR AND BIXLER FARMS,LLCCAFO · 1.8 mi
- PHAM NGUYEN FARM, INC.CAFO · 1.9 mi
- MORROW REEDS BEND FARM, LLCCAFO · 3.1 mi
- BROWN CONSTRUCTION CO, INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.4 mi
- T25N R08E 11CBBNitrate · 5.1 mi
- T25N R08E 22BAA1Nitrate · 5.2 mi
- AD HWY P66Brownfields · 5.4 mi
- WALMART SUPERCENTER #30Brownfields · 5.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Dudley'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 Dudley.
Total Sites
100
within ~10 miles of Dudley
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
8 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Dudley
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Dudley
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Dudley, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Dudley — CAFO (5 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (8 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Dudley
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 Dudley average
Your land is one point inside Dudley
Everything above resolves to Dudley as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 249 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 Dudley Average
Dudley Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Dudley
- ●One soil character for all of Dudley
- ●Frost dates read at Dudley's scale: Mar 17 to Nov 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Dudley's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Dudley
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Dudley, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Dudley averages can't show:
We read public map data around Dudley — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Dudley average
How we know this about Dudley
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 Dudley’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 Dudley
When does frost risk typically end in Dudley?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Dudley typically lands around Mar 17, 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 7.
When is the first frost in Dudley?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Dudley typically arrives around Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 5, so the watching starts about Oct 20 — about 247 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Dudley?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Dudley sees about 247 frost-free days — roughly Mar 17 through Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 7 to Nov 5, about 212 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Dudley?
The federal record around Dudley shows 100 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (52), 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 Dudley?
From about Oct 20 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 19 (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 19. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Dudley's scale — its 7b band and its 247-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Dudley'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 Dudley’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Dudley's own scale — its own ~247-day season between 28°F freezes, the 249 acres it covers and 100 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Dudley's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Dudley's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 17 and Nov 19 and the ~247-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 100 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Dudley, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Dudley's boundary and the 249 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~247-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Dudley's own centroid, the Mississippi Alluvial PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Dudley 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 Dudley's 249 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Stoddard County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Stoddard 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 Stoddard County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Dudley's 249 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Dudley you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 249 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 Dudley-wide figureread your own land →
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