Iatan, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Iatan, 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 Iatan 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 Iatan — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Iatan — the short answer
Iatan, Missouri: USDA zone 6a, about 212 days between hard freezes, across 140 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~212
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 140 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 Iatan's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Iatan's 212-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Iatan
Each reading below is measured for Iatan itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredIatan runs about 212 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
MeasuredIatan 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 Iatan is in
Iatan sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Iatan's own centroid rather than borrowed from Platte County.
What Grows in Iatan
Every plant below cleared Iatan's own zone 6a and its 212-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Iatan?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 5; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 31 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Iatan
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Iatan. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SNOW CREEKBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- EIRLSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- T54N R37W 12BBA1Nitrate · 1.7 mi
- IATAN GENERATING STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- IATAN GENERATING STATIONToxics Release Inventory · 2.0 mi
- IATAN GENERATING STATIONBrownfields · 2.0 mi
- T54N R37W 23CBA1Nitrate · 2.4 mi
- 07S 21E 23BDC 01Nitrate · 4.7 mi
- 07S 22E 30CAA 01Nitrate · 4.7 mi
- T55N R37W 33ACA1Nitrate · 5.6 mi
- LEWIS & CLARK HATCHERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.6 mi
- 07S 21E 26DCD 01Nitrate · 5.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Iatan'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 Iatan.
Total Sites
105
within ~10 miles of Iatan
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Iatan
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Iatan
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Iatan, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 28 sites within ~10 miles of Iatan. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
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 Iatan
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 Iatan average
Your land is one point inside Iatan
Everything above resolves to Iatan as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 140 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 Iatan Average
Iatan Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Iatan
- ●One soil character for all of Iatan
- ●Frost dates read at Iatan's scale: Apr 2 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Iatan's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Iatan
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Iatan, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Iatan averages can't show:
We read public map data around Iatan — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Iatan average
How we know this about Iatan
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 Iatan’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 Iatan
When does frost risk typically end in Iatan?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Iatan typically lands around Apr 2, 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 23.
When is the first frost in Iatan?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Iatan typically arrives around Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 17, so the watching starts about Oct 1 — about 212 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Iatan?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Iatan sees about 212 frost-free days — roughly Apr 2 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 23 to Oct 17, about 177 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Iatan?
The federal record around Iatan is a meaningful one — 105 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (39), the nearest Brownfields record about 1.0 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 Iatan?
From about Oct 1 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 31 (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 31. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Iatan's scale — its 6a band and its 212-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Iatan'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 Iatan’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Iatan's own scale — its own ~212-day season between 28°F freezes, the 140 acres it covers and 105 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Iatan's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Iatan's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 2 and Oct 31 and the ~212-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 105 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Iatan, the closest Brownfields record about 1.0 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Iatan's boundary and the 140 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~212-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Iatan's own centroid, the Western Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Iatan's 140 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Platte County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Platte 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 Platte County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Iatan's 140 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Iatan you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 140 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 1.0 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 Iatan-wide figureread your own land →
More in Missouri
Wider growing context
What grows across MissouriIatan sits outside our named growing regions, so Missouri as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides