Hardin, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Hardin, 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 Hardin 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 Hardin — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Hardin — the short answer
Hardin, Missouri: USDA zone 6a, about 207 days between hard freezes, across 412 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~207
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 412 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 6a is Hardin's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Hardin's 207-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Hardin
Each reading below is measured for Hardin itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHardin runs about 207 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
MeasuredHardin sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Hardin is in
Hardin sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Hardin's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Ray County is mostly Central Irregular Plains. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Hardin
Every plant below cleared Hardin's own zone 6a and its 207-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Hardin?
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 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 4 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 28 — 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 Hardin
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Hardin. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- T52N R26W 32DDA1Nitrate · 750 ft
- COOP GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- FARM SITEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- BLANKENSHIPS SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- HARDIN MAINT LOTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- T52N R26W 19DBC1Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- T51N R26W 14BBB1Nitrate · 2.9 mi
- T52N R26W 25BCC1Nitrate · 3.4 mi
- ORBSEAL LLC-RICHMONDBrownfields · 5.0 mi
- ORBSEAL LLC-RICHMONDToxics Release Inventory · 5.0 mi
- RICHMOND MAINT LOTUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.1 mi
- M-39 RICHMONDUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Hardin'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 Hardin.
Total Sites
112
within ~10 miles of Hardin
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
7 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Hardin
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Hardin
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Hardin, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 7 sites within ~10 miles of Hardin. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Hardin
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 Hardin average
Your land is one point inside Hardin
Everything above resolves to Hardin as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 412 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 Hardin Average
Hardin Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Hardin
- ●One soil character for all of Hardin
- ●Frost dates read at Hardin's scale: Apr 4 to Oct 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Hardin's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Hardin
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Hardin, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Hardin averages can't show:
We read public map data around Hardin — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hardin average
How we know this about Hardin
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 Hardin’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 Hardin
When does frost risk typically end in Hardin?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Hardin typically lands around Apr 4, 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 25.
When is the first frost in Hardin?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Hardin typically arrives around Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 14, so the watching starts about Sep 28 — about 207 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Hardin?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Hardin sees about 207 frost-free days — roughly Apr 4 through Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 25 to Oct 14, about 172 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Hardin?
The federal record around Hardin shows 112 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (62), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.1 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Hardin?
From about Sep 28 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 Oct 28 (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 Oct 28. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Hardin's scale — its 6a band and its 207-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Hardin'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 Hardin’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Hardin's own scale — its own ~207-day season between 28°F freezes, the 412 acres it covers and 112 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Hardin's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Hardin's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 4 and Oct 28 and the ~207-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 112 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Hardin, the closest Nitrate record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Hardin's boundary and the 412 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~207-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Hardin sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Hardin's 412 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Ray County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Ray 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 Ray County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Hardin's 412 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Hardin you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 412 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.1 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 Hardin-wide figureread your own land →
More in Missouri
Wider growing context
What grows across MissouriHardin sits outside our named growing regions, so Missouri as a whole is its closest context here.