Gasconade, 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.
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 Gasconade, 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 Gasconade 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 Gasconade — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Gasconade — the short answer
Gasconade, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 217 days between hard freezes, across 130 acres of city.
- 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)
- Nov 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~217
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 130 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 Gasconade's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Gasconade's 217-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Gasconade
Each reading below is measured for Gasconade itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredGasconade runs about 217 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
MeasuredGasconade 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 Gasconade is in
Gasconade sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Gasconade's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Gasconade County is mostly Ozark Highlands. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Gasconade
Every plant below cleared Gasconade's own zone 6b and its 217-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Gasconade?
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 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 Nov 3 — 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.
Documented around Gasconade
Survey cells within 31 miles of Gasconade checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 279 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Gasconade
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Gasconade. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- GASCONADE MERCANTILEUnderground Storage Tanks · 400 ft
- IKE POULSENUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- U S CORP OF ENGINEERSBrownfields · 500 ft
- T45N R06W 11BBB1Nitrate · 1200 ft
- US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- COOP ASSOCIATION #130Underground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- T45N R05W 06AAB1Nitrate · 3.0 mi
- T45N R06W 05CAC1Nitrate · 3.1 mi
- GASCONADE BOAT YARDSuperfund · 3.2 mi
- COUNTRY LOUNGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
- ALLAN NOLTE SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- T45N R06W 07ABB1Nitrate · 3.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Gasconade'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 Gasconade.
Total Sites
69
within ~10 miles of Gasconade
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Gasconade
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Gasconade
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Gasconade, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 28 sites within ~10 miles of Gasconade. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Gasconade
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 Gasconade average
Your land is one point inside Gasconade
Everything above resolves to Gasconade as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 130 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 Gasconade Average
Gasconade Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Gasconade
- ●One soil character for all of Gasconade
- ●Frost dates read at Gasconade's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Gasconade's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Gasconade
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Gasconade, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Gasconade averages can't show:
We read public map data around Gasconade — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Gasconade average
How we know this about Gasconade
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 Gasconade’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 Gasconade
When does frost risk typically end in Gasconade?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Gasconade 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 Gasconade?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Gasconade typically arrives around Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 20, so the watching starts about Oct 4 — about 217 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Gasconade?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Gasconade sees about 217 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 20, about 182 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Gasconade?
The federal record around Gasconade is a meaningful one — 69 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (31), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Gasconade?
From about Oct 4 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 3 (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 3. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Gasconade's scale — its 6b band and its 217-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Gasconade'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 Gasconade’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Gasconade's own scale — its own ~217-day season between 28°F freezes, the 130 acres it covers and 69 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Gasconade's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Gasconade's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Nov 3 and the ~217-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 69 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Gasconade, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Gasconade's boundary and the 130 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~217-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Gasconade sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Gasconade 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 Gasconade's 130 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Gasconade County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Gasconade 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 Gasconade County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Gasconade's 130 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Gasconade you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 130 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 Gasconade-wide figureread your own land →
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