El Dorado Springs, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
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.
Even in El Dorado Springs, 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 El Dorado Springs 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 El Dorado Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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El Dorado Springs — the short answer
El Dorado Springs, Missouri: USDA zone 7a, about 226 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~226
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City 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 7a is El Dorado Springs's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against El Dorado Springs's 226-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in El Dorado Springs
Each reading below is measured for El Dorado Springs itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredEl Dorado Springs 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
MeasuredEl Dorado Springs 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 El Dorado Springs is in
El Dorado Springs sits in the Central Irregular Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at El Dorado Springs's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Cedar County is mostly Ozark Highlands. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in El Dorado Springs
Every plant below cleared El Dorado Springs's own zone 7a and its 226-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in El Dorado Springs?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. 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 6 — 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.
What's on the federal record near El Dorado Springs
Closest first, within ~10 miles of El Dorado Springs. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- EL DORADO SPRINGS R-2 SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- T36N R28W 28ACD1Nitrate · 1400 ft
- JAMES FRIAR D/B/A SCHMIDT OIL COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- SAC OSAGE ELEC COOPBrownfields · 1800 ft
- T36N R28W 28ACDNitrate · 1900 ft
- PRODUCERS GRAIN COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- GREEN OIL COUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- THE PITTSTOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- WITT PRINTING COMPANYBrownfields · 2400 ft
- ORVAL BLAND MOTORSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #3099Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- MIKE & JOE'S TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from El Dorado Springs'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 El Dorado Springs.
Total Sites
60
within ~10 miles of El Dorado Springs
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of El Dorado Springs
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of El Dorado Springs
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around El Dorado Springs, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of El Dorado Springs — CAFO (3 sites) and Nitrate (18 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 El Dorado Springs
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 El Dorado Springs average
Your land is one point inside El Dorado Springs
Everything above resolves to El Dorado Springs 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 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 El Dorado Springs Average
El Dorado Springs Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across El Dorado Springs
- ●One soil character for all of El Dorado Springs
- ●Frost dates read at El Dorado Springs's scale: Mar 25 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not El Dorado Springs's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in El Dorado Springs
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in El Dorado Springs, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that El Dorado Springs averages can't show:
We read public map data around El Dorado Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the El Dorado Springs average
How we know this about El Dorado Springs
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 El Dorado Springs’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 El Dorado Springs
When does frost risk typically end in El Dorado Springs?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in El Dorado Springs 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.
When is the first frost in El Dorado Springs?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in El Dorado Springs typically arrives around Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 23, so the watching starts about Oct 7 — about 226 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in El Dorado Springs?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, El Dorado Springs sees about 226 frost-free days — roughly Mar 25 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 15 to Oct 23, about 191 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in El Dorado Springs?
The federal record around El Dorado Springs shows 60 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (29), 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 El Dorado Springs?
From about Oct 7 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 6 (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 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at El Dorado Springs's scale — its 7a band and its 226-day season. Your yard writes its own version of El Dorado Springs'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 El Dorado Springs’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at El Dorado Springs's own scale — its own ~226-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,972 acres it covers and 60 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- El Dorado Springs's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- El Dorado Springs's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 25 and Nov 6 and the ~226-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 60 documented contamination sites on the federal record near El Dorado Springs, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- El Dorado Springs's boundary and the 1,972 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~226-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- El Dorado Springs sits in the Central Irregular Plains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so El Dorado Springs's 1,972 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cedar County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cedar 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 Cedar County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among El Dorado Springs's 1,972 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of El Dorado Springs you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,972 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 El Dorado Springs-wide figureread your own land →
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