Gravois Mills, 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 Gravois Mills, 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 Gravois Mills 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 Gravois Mills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Gravois Mills — the short answer
Gravois Mills, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 226 days between hard freezes, across 475 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~226
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 475 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 Gravois Mills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Gravois Mills's 226-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Gravois Mills
Each reading below is measured for Gravois Mills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredGravois Mills 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
MeasuredGravois Mills 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 Gravois Mills is in
Gravois Mills sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Gravois Mills's own centroid rather than borrowed from Morgan County.
What Grows in Gravois Mills
Every plant below cleared Gravois Mills's own zone 6b and its 226-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Gravois Mills?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 9 — 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.
Documented around Gravois Mills
Survey cells within 31 miles of Gravois Mills checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 343 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Gravois Mills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Gravois Mills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- KINCAIDS HANDYMAN SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- Page ShaftMining · 0.7 mi
- Old Jack MineMining · 0.7 mi
- Rastover ProspectMining · 1.0 mi
- Rose DiggingsMining · 1.1 mi
- Ira Williams MineMining · 1.1 mi
- Flick - Reed MineMining · 1.4 mi
- KELLYS PORT INCBrownfields · 1.5 mi
- COCONUTSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- Witherill MinesMining · 1.6 mi
- Nugent DiggingsMining · 1.8 mi
- ZELLAS PANTRYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Gravois Mills'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 Gravois Mills.
Total Sites
146
within ~10 miles of Gravois Mills
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Gravois Mills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Gravois Mills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Gravois Mills, Mining runs higher than the national average — 88 sites within ~10 miles of Gravois Mills. 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 Gravois Mills
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 Gravois Mills average
Your land is one point inside Gravois Mills
Everything above resolves to Gravois Mills as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 475 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 Gravois Mills Average
Gravois Mills Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Gravois Mills
- ●One soil character for all of Gravois Mills
- ●Frost dates read at Gravois Mills's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Gravois Mills's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Gravois Mills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Gravois Mills, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Gravois Mills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Gravois Mills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Gravois Mills average
How we know this about Gravois Mills
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 Gravois Mills’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 Gravois Mills
When does frost risk typically end in Gravois Mills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Gravois Mills typically lands around Mar 28, 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 18.
When is the first frost in Gravois Mills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Gravois Mills typically arrives around Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 26, so the watching starts about Oct 10 — about 226 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Gravois Mills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Gravois Mills sees about 226 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Oct 26, about 191 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Gravois Mills?
The federal record around Gravois Mills runs heavier than most — 146 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (88), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Gravois Mills?
From about Oct 10 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 9 (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 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Gravois Mills's scale — its 6b band and its 226-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Gravois Mills'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 Gravois Mills’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Gravois Mills's own scale — its own ~226-day season between 28°F freezes, the 475 acres it covers and 146 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Gravois Mills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Gravois Mills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 9 and the ~226-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 146 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Gravois Mills, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Gravois Mills's boundary and the 475 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~226-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Gravois Mills's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Gravois Mills 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 Gravois Mills's 475 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Morgan County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Morgan 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 Morgan County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Gravois Mills's 475 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Gravois Mills you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 475 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 Gravois Mills-wide figureread your own land →
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