Lemay, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Lemay, 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 Lemay 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 Lemay — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Lemay — the short answer
Lemay, Missouri: USDA zone 7a, about 235 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~235
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 Lemay's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lemay's 235-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lemay
Each reading below is measured for Lemay itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLemay runs about 235 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
MeasuredLemay 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 Lemay is in
Lemay sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Lemay's own centroid rather than borrowed from St. Louis County.
What Grows in Lemay
Every plant below cleared Lemay's own zone 7a and its 235-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lemay?
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 Feb 22; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 22 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 12 — 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.
Documented around Lemay
Survey cells within 31 miles of Lemay checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 248 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Lemay
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lemay. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CVS PHARMACY #18055Brownfields · 550 ft
- SHOP N SAVE # 4522Brownfields · 550 ft
- FORMER AMOCO SITE SS 9683Underground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- US POST OFFICEBrownfields · 700 ft
- LEMAY FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICTUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- 932 LEMAY FERRYUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- DOWLINGS AUTO BODYBrownfields · 800 ft
- PHILLIPS 66Underground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- CHARLES COYLE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- FAMILY DOLLAR # 2830Brownfields · 1300 ft
- VACANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- AUTOZONEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lemay'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 Lemay.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lemay
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lemay
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lemay, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Lemay — Superfund (57 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (237 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Lemay
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 Lemay average
Your land is one point inside Lemay
Everything above resolves to Lemay as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Lemay Average
Lemay Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Lemay
- ●One soil character for all of Lemay
- ●Frost dates read at Lemay's scale: Mar 22 to Nov 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lemay's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lemay
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lemay, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lemay averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lemay — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lemay average
How we know this about Lemay
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 Lemay’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 Lemay
When does frost risk typically end in Lemay?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lemay typically lands around Mar 22, 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 12.
When is the first frost in Lemay?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lemay typically arrives around Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 29, so the watching starts about Oct 13 — about 235 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lemay?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lemay sees about 235 frost-free days — roughly Mar 22 through Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 12 to Oct 29, about 200 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lemay?
The federal record around Lemay runs heavier than most — 3,288 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,974), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles 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 Lemay?
From about Oct 13 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 12 (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 12. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Lemay's scale — its 7a band and its 235-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lemay'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 Lemay’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Lemay's own scale — its own ~235-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,618 acres it covers and 3,288 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lemay's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lemay's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 22 and Nov 12 and the ~235-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 3,288 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lemay, the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lemay's boundary and the 2,618 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~235-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Lemay's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Lemay 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 Lemay's 2,618 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom St. Louis County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom St. Louis 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 St. Louis County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Lemay's 2,618 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lemay you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,618 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 Lemay-wide figureread your own land →
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