Gray Summit, 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.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Gray Summit, 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 Gray Summit 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 Gray Summit — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Gray Summit — the short answer
Gray Summit, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 222 days between hard freezes, across 5K acres of town.
- 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 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~222
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 5K 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 Gray Summit's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Gray Summit's 222-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Gray Summit
Each reading below is measured for Gray Summit itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredGray Summit runs about 222 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
MeasuredGray Summit 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 Gray Summit is in
Gray Summit sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Gray Summit's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Franklin County is mostly Ozark Highlands. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Gray Summit
Every plant below cleared Gray Summit's own zone 6b and its 222-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Gray Summit?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. 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 4 — 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 Gray Summit
Survey cells within 31 miles of Gray Summit checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 266 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Gray Summit
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Gray Summit. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- GRAY SUMMIT RESEARCH FARMUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- PURINA ANIMAL NUTRITION CENTERCAFO · 2300 ft
- PURINA ANIMAL NUTRITION CENTERBrownfields · 2300 ft
- T43N R02W 05DBD1Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- WALLIS PETROLEUM #507Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- DIAMONDS SHELL STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- WALLIS PETROLEUM #506Underground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- MO BOTANICAL GARDEN ARBORETUMUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- GRAY SUMMITUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- CHLANDA PROPERTYSuperfund · 1.6 mi
- T43N R02E 09AAA1Nitrate · 2.0 mi
- WAYSIDE LIQUORUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Gray Summit'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 Gray Summit.
Total Sites
231
within ~10 miles of Gray Summit
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Gray Summit
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Gray Summit
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Gray Summit, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Gray Summit — PFAS (4 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (15 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Gray Summit
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 Gray Summit average
Your land is one point inside Gray Summit
Everything above resolves to Gray Summit as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 5K 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 Gray Summit Average
Gray Summit Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Gray Summit
- ●One soil character for all of Gray Summit
- ●Frost dates read at Gray Summit's scale: Mar 27 to Nov 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Gray Summit's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Gray Summit
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Gray Summit, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Gray Summit averages can't show:
We read public map data around Gray Summit — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Gray Summit average
How we know this about Gray Summit
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 Gray Summit’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 Gray Summit
When does frost risk typically end in Gray Summit?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Gray Summit 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 Gray Summit?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Gray Summit 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 222 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Gray Summit?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Gray Summit sees about 222 frost-free days — roughly Mar 27 through Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 17 to Oct 21, about 187 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Gray Summit?
The federal record around Gray Summit is a meaningful one — 231 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (108), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles 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 Gray Summit?
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 Gray Summit's scale — its 6b band and its 222-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Gray Summit'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 Gray Summit’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Gray Summit's own scale — its own ~222-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,925 acres it covers and 231 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Gray Summit's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Gray Summit's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 27 and Nov 4 and the ~222-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 231 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Gray Summit, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Gray Summit's boundary and the 4,925 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~222-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Gray Summit sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Gray Summit 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 Gray Summit's 4,925 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Franklin County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Franklin 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 Franklin County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Gray Summit's 4,925 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Gray Summit you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,925 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Gray Summit-wide figureread your own land →
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