Kirksville, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Kirksville, 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 Kirksville 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 Kirksville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Kirksville — the short answer
Kirksville, Missouri: USDA zone 6a, about 207 days between hard freezes, across 9K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~207
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 9K 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 Kirksville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Kirksville's 207-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Kirksville
Each reading below is measured for Kirksville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredKirksville 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
MeasuredKirksville 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 Kirksville is in
Kirksville sits in the Central Irregular Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Kirksville's own centroid rather than borrowed from Adair County.
What Grows in Kirksville
Every plant below cleared Kirksville'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 Kirksville?
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 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 29 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Kirksville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Kirksville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- OREILLY AUTO PARTS STORE 261Brownfields · 750 ft
- HY VEE GASUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- WALGREENS #9986Brownfields · 900 ft
- KIRKSVILLE CENTRAL OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- KUM & GO #781Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- VIC CLEANERS-KIRKSVILLEBrownfields · 1600 ft
- KERR-MCGEE #7441Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- U-PUMPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- EAST ILLINOIS CONOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- SONNY S COLLISION CENTERBrownfields · 2100 ft
- CARLYLE WALKERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- LOREN HATFIELD BODY & FRAMEBrownfields · 2200 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Kirksville'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 Kirksville.
Total Sites
103
within ~10 miles of Kirksville
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Kirksville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Kirksville
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Kirksville, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 65 sites within ~10 miles of Kirksville. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Kirksville
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 Kirksville average
Your land is one point inside Kirksville
Everything above resolves to Kirksville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 9K 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 Kirksville Average
Kirksville Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Kirksville
- ●One soil character for all of Kirksville
- ●Frost dates read at Kirksville's scale: Apr 5 to Oct 29
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Kirksville's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Kirksville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Kirksville, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Kirksville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Kirksville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Kirksville average
How we know this about Kirksville
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 Kirksville’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 Kirksville
When does frost risk typically end in Kirksville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Kirksville typically lands around Apr 5, 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 26.
When is the first frost in Kirksville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Kirksville typically arrives around Oct 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 15, so the watching starts about Sep 29 — about 207 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Kirksville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Kirksville sees about 207 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Oct 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 15, about 172 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Kirksville?
The federal record around Kirksville is a meaningful one — 103 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (65), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.1 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 Kirksville?
From about Sep 29 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 29 (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 29. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Kirksville's scale — its 6a band and its 207-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Kirksville'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 Kirksville’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Kirksville's own scale — its own ~207-day season between 28°F freezes, the 9,207 acres it covers and 103 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Kirksville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Kirksville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Oct 29 and the ~207-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 103 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Kirksville, the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Kirksville's boundary and the 9,207 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~207-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Kirksville's own centroid, the Central Irregular PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Kirksville's 9,207 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Adair County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Adair 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 Adair County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Kirksville's 9,207 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Kirksville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 9,207 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Kirksville-wide figureread your own land →
More in Missouri
Wider growing context
What grows across MissouriKirksville sits outside our named growing regions, so Missouri as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides