Macks Creek, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
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 Macks Creek, 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 Macks Creek 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 Macks Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Macks Creek — the short answer
Macks Creek, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 226 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~226
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 6b is Macks Creek's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Macks Creek's 226-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Macks Creek
Each reading below is measured for Macks Creek itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMacks Creek runs about 226 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
MeasuredMacks Creek sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Macks Creek is in
Macks Creek sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Macks Creek's own centroid rather than borrowed from Camden County.
What Grows in Macks Creek
Every plant below cleared Macks Creek's own zone 6b and its 226-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Macks Creek?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 27; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 27 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 8 — 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 Macks Creek
Survey cells within 31 miles of Macks Creek checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 365 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Macks Creek
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Macks Creek. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CITY OF MACKS CREEKUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- MACKS CREEK SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- T37N R18W 07ABA1Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- NERA P. RICKERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- SCHMIDT, DANIEL T.CAFO · 2.9 mi
- BEN TURNERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- Marrow MineMining · 3.0 mi
- THOMSONS COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.9 mi
- UnknownMining · 6.7 mi
- Daniels and Browns DiggingsMining · 7.4 mi
- Hatfield DiggingsMining · 7.7 mi
- Unknown - ZincMining · 8.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Macks Creek'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 Macks Creek.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Macks Creek
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Macks Creek
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Mine waste leaches heavy metals. Test for lead, arsenic and cadmium before growing food here.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Macks Creek
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 Macks Creek average
Your land is one point inside Macks Creek
Everything above resolves to Macks Creek as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Macks Creek Average
Macks Creek Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Macks Creek
- ●One soil character for all of Macks Creek
- ●Frost dates read at Macks Creek's scale: Mar 27 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Macks Creek's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Macks Creek
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Macks Creek, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Macks Creek averages can't show:
We read public map data around Macks Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Macks Creek average
How we know this about Macks Creek
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 Macks Creek’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 Macks Creek
When does frost risk typically end in Macks Creek?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Macks Creek typically lands around Mar 27, 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 17.
When is the first frost in Macks Creek?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Macks Creek typically arrives around Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 25, so the watching starts about Oct 9 — about 226 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Macks Creek?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Macks Creek sees about 226 frost-free days — roughly Mar 27 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 17 to Oct 25, about 191 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Macks Creek?
The federal record around Macks Creek is a meaningful one — 21 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (9), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Macks Creek?
From about Oct 9 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 8 (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 8. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Macks Creek's scale — its 6b band and its 226-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Macks Creek'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 Macks Creek’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Macks Creek's own scale — its own ~226-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,235 acres it covers and 21 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Macks Creek's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Macks Creek's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 27 and Nov 8 and the ~226-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 21 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Macks Creek, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Macks Creek's boundary and the 1,235 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~226-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Macks Creek's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Macks Creek 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 Macks Creek's 1,235 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Camden County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Camden 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 Camden County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Macks Creek's 1,235 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Macks Creek you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,235 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Macks Creek-wide figureread your own land →
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