Kimmswick, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Kimmswick, 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 Kimmswick 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 Kimmswick — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Kimmswick — the short answer
Kimmswick, Missouri: USDA zone 7a, about 231 days between hard freezes, across 150 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 23
- 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
- ~231
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 150 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 7a is Kimmswick's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Kimmswick's 231-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Kimmswick
Each reading below is measured for Kimmswick itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredKimmswick runs about 231 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
MeasuredKimmswick sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Kimmswick is in
Kimmswick sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Kimmswick's own centroid rather than borrowed from Jefferson County.
What Grows in Kimmswick
Every plant below cleared Kimmswick's own zone 7a and its 231-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Kimmswick?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 23 (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. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Kimmswick
Survey cells within 31 miles of Kimmswick checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 254 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Kimmswick
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Kimmswick. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- JEFFERSON COUNTY PWSD 10PFAS · 250 ft
- WAYNE KRAEMER D/B/A KRAEMER HAULINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- T42N R06E 21BCC1Nitrate · 1900 ft
- WINDSOR SCHOOL, CONSOLIDATED DISTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- T42N R06E 20ACC1Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- IMPERIAL GAS & MERCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- T42N R06E 20BDB1Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- CIRCLE K #1601Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- T42N R06E 17ADB1Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- STOUT RESIDENCESuperfund · 0.9 mi
- T42N R06E 20BBA1Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- GERBER COLLISION & GLASS IMPERIALBrownfields · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Kimmswick'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 Kimmswick.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Kimmswick
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Kimmswick
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Kimmswick, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Kimmswick — PFAS (7 sites) and Nitrate (150 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.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Kimmswick
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 Kimmswick average
Your land is one point inside Kimmswick
Everything above resolves to Kimmswick as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 150 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 Kimmswick Average
Kimmswick Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Kimmswick
- ●One soil character for all of Kimmswick
- ●Frost dates read at Kimmswick's scale: Mar 23 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Kimmswick's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Kimmswick
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Kimmswick, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Kimmswick averages can't show:
We read public map data around Kimmswick — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Kimmswick average
How we know this about Kimmswick
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 Kimmswick’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 Kimmswick
When does frost risk typically end in Kimmswick?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Kimmswick typically lands around Mar 23, 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 13.
When is the first frost in Kimmswick?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Kimmswick 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 231 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Kimmswick?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Kimmswick sees about 231 frost-free days — roughly Mar 23 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 13 to Oct 26, about 196 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Kimmswick?
The federal record around Kimmswick runs heavier than most — 561 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (235), the nearest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile 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 Kimmswick?
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 Kimmswick's scale — its 7a band and its 231-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Kimmswick'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 Kimmswick’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Kimmswick's own scale — its own ~231-day season between 28°F freezes, the 150 acres it covers and 561 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Kimmswick's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Kimmswick's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 23 and Nov 9 and the ~231-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 561 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Kimmswick, the closest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Kimmswick's boundary and the 150 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~231-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Kimmswick's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Kimmswick 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 Kimmswick's 150 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Jefferson County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Jefferson 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 Jefferson County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Kimmswick's 150 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Kimmswick you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 150 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile 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 Kimmswick-wide figureread your own land →
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