Mokane, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Mokane, 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 Mokane 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 Mokane — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Mokane — the short answer
Mokane, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 226 days between hard freezes, across 188 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~226
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 188 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 Mokane's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Mokane's 226-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Mokane
Each reading below is measured for Mokane itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMokane 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
MeasuredMokane 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 Mokane is in
Mokane sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Mokane's own centroid rather than borrowed from Callaway County.
What Grows in Mokane
Every plant below cleared Mokane'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 Mokane?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 7 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Mokane
Survey cells within 31 miles of Mokane checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 289 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Mokane
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Mokane. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FASTLANE MOKANE CARDLOCKUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- T45N R09W 13AAA1Nitrate · 2000 ft
- T45N R09W 13DCA1Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- MOKANE MAINT BLDGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- CALLAWAY CO 429 (MCHI)Nitrate · 2.0 mi
- T46N R09W 30CBB1Nitrate · 3.8 mi
- T45N R09W 34ADB1Nitrate · 3.9 mi
- T45N R08W 03DDD1Nitrate · 4.1 mi
- ADVANCED COMPOSITE TECHNOLOGIESToxics Release Inventory · 5.2 mi
- MFA CHAMOIS - MORRISONUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.5 mi
- CHAMOIS STATION MILEPOST 1002Underground Storage Tanks · 5.6 mi
- FREEDOM STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Mokane'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 Mokane.
Total Sites
51
within ~10 miles of Mokane
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Mokane
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Mokane
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Mokane, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 32 sites within ~10 miles of Mokane. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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 Mokane
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 Mokane average
Your land is one point inside Mokane
Everything above resolves to Mokane as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 188 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 Mokane Average
Mokane Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Mokane
- ●One soil character for all of Mokane
- ●Frost dates read at Mokane's scale: Mar 26 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Mokane's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Mokane
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Mokane, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Mokane averages can't show:
We read public map data around Mokane — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mokane average
How we know this about Mokane
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 Mokane’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 Mokane
When does frost risk typically end in Mokane?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Mokane typically lands around Mar 26, 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 16.
When is the first frost in Mokane?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Mokane typically arrives around Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 24, so the watching starts about Oct 8 — about 226 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Mokane?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Mokane sees about 226 frost-free days — roughly Mar 26 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 16 to Oct 24, about 191 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Mokane?
The federal record around Mokane shows 51 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (32), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Mokane?
From about Oct 8 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 7 (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 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Mokane's scale — its 6b band and its 226-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Mokane'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 Mokane’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Mokane's own scale — its own ~226-day season between 28°F freezes, the 188 acres it covers and 51 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Mokane's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Mokane's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 26 and Nov 7 and the ~226-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 51 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Mokane, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Mokane's boundary and the 188 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 Mokane's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Mokane 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 Mokane's 188 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Callaway County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Callaway 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 Callaway County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Mokane's 188 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Mokane you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 188 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Mokane-wide figureread your own land →
More in Missouri
Wider growing context
What grows across MissouriMokane sits outside our named growing regions, so Missouri as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides