Eldon, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
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 Eldon, 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 Eldon 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 Eldon — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Eldon — the short answer
Eldon, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 230 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~230
- 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 6b is Eldon's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Eldon's 230-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Eldon
Each reading below is measured for Eldon itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredEldon runs about 230 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
MeasuredEldon 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 Eldon is in
Eldon sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Eldon's own centroid rather than borrowed from Miller County.
What Grows in Eldon
Every plant below cleared Eldon's own zone 6b and its 230-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Eldon?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 27; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 27 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 12 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Eldon
Survey cells within 31 miles of Eldon checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 331 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Eldon
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Eldon. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- KRAFT, INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- ELDON JIFFY STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- ELDON CENTRAL OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- MIDTOWN CONOCO - LOREN & TAMI RICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- CARL HESS 66 SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- OLD MOBIL STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- BRUMBY SPORTS STOP LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- ELDON TEXACO (HARDING AUTO GLASS)Underground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- ELDON HEALTH CAREUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- ELDON EAGLE STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- PROPOSED RESTAURANT- HWY 52 & 54Underground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- HOWARD L WOLFEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Eldon'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 Eldon.
Total Sites
114
within ~10 miles of Eldon
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
6 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Eldon
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Eldon
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Eldon, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Eldon — CAFO (8 sites) and Mining (42 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Eldon
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 Eldon average
Your land is one point inside Eldon
Everything above resolves to Eldon 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 Eldon Average
Eldon Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Eldon
- ●One soil character for all of Eldon
- ●Frost dates read at Eldon's scale: Mar 27 to Nov 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Eldon's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Eldon
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Eldon, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Eldon averages can't show:
We read public map data around Eldon — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Eldon average
How we know this about Eldon
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 Eldon’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 Eldon
When does frost risk typically end in Eldon?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Eldon typically lands around Mar 27, 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 17.
When is the first frost in Eldon?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Eldon typically arrives around Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 29, so the watching starts about Oct 13 — about 230 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Eldon?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Eldon sees about 230 frost-free days — roughly Mar 27 through Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 17 to Oct 29, about 195 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Eldon?
The federal record around Eldon runs heavier than most — 114 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (42), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Eldon?
From about Oct 13 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 12 (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 12. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Eldon's scale — its 6b band and its 230-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Eldon'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 Eldon’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Eldon's own scale — its own ~230-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,275 acres it covers and 114 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Eldon's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Eldon's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 27 and Nov 12 and the ~230-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 114 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Eldon, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Eldon's boundary and the 2,275 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~230-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Eldon's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Eldon 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 Eldon's 2,275 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Miller County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Miller 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 Miller County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Eldon's 2,275 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Eldon you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,275 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Eldon-wide figureread your own land →
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