Goose Creek Lake, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Expect cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Goose Creek Lake, 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 Goose Creek Lake 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 Goose Creek Lake — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Goose Creek Lake — the short answer
Goose Creek Lake, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 220 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~220
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 Goose Creek Lake's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Goose Creek Lake's 220-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Goose Creek Lake
Each reading below is measured for Goose Creek Lake itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredGoose Creek Lake runs about 220 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
MeasuredGoose Creek Lake 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 Goose Creek Lake is in
Goose Creek Lake sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Goose Creek Lake's own centroid rather than borrowed from St. Francois County.
What Grows in Goose Creek Lake
Every plant below cleared Goose Creek Lake's own zone 6b and its 220-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Goose Creek Lake?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 29 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 4 — 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 Goose Creek Lake
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Goose Creek Lake. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- GOOSE CREEK MARKET N PUBUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- JAKES EXPRESS SHOP & DELI LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- Unknown - Lead-ZincMining · 2.7 mi
- Woodward + Turner ShaftMining · 4.0 mi
- T39N R07E 31CDC1Nitrate · 4.5 mi
- WITTUS STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
- T39N R07E 31CDCNitrate · 4.7 mi
- MISSISSIPPI RIVER TRANSMISSION CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.6 mi
- Unknown - LeadMining · 5.6 mi
- CENTRAL FLEET INCBrownfields · 5.7 mi
- KEN DAVID FARMCAFO · 5.8 mi
- BLOOMSDALE EXCAVATING CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Goose Creek Lake'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 Goose Creek Lake.
Total Sites
104
within ~10 miles of Goose Creek Lake
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Goose Creek Lake
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Goose Creek Lake
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Goose Creek Lake, Mining runs higher than the national average — 62 sites within ~10 miles of Goose Creek Lake. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Goose Creek Lake
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 Goose Creek Lake average
Your land is one point inside Goose Creek Lake
Everything above resolves to Goose Creek Lake as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Goose Creek Lake Average
Goose Creek Lake Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Goose Creek Lake
- ●One soil character for all of Goose Creek Lake
- ●Frost dates read at Goose Creek Lake's scale: Mar 29 to Nov 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Goose Creek Lake's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Goose Creek Lake
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Goose Creek Lake, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Goose Creek Lake averages can't show:
We read public map data around Goose Creek Lake — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Goose Creek Lake average
How we know this about Goose Creek Lake
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 Goose Creek Lake’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 Goose Creek Lake
When does frost risk typically end in Goose Creek Lake?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Goose Creek Lake typically lands around Mar 29, 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 19.
When is the first frost in Goose Creek Lake?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Goose Creek Lake typically arrives around Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 21, so the watching starts about Oct 5 — about 220 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Goose Creek Lake?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Goose Creek Lake sees about 220 frost-free days — roughly Mar 29 through Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 19 to Oct 21, about 185 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Goose Creek Lake?
The federal record around Goose Creek Lake runs heavier than most — 104 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (62), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.5 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 Goose Creek Lake?
From about Oct 5 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 4 (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 4. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Goose Creek Lake's scale — its 6b band and its 220-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Goose Creek Lake'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 Goose Creek Lake’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Goose Creek Lake's own scale — its own ~220-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,533 acres it covers and 104 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Goose Creek Lake's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Goose Creek Lake's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 29 and Nov 4 and the ~220-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 104 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Goose Creek Lake, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Goose Creek Lake's boundary and the 2,533 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~220-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Goose Creek Lake's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Goose Creek Lake's 2,533 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 Goose Creek Lake's 2,533 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Goose Creek Lake you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,533 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.5 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 Goose Creek Lake-wide figureread your own land →
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