New Madrid, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Growers here do well with cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in New Madrid, 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 New Madrid 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 New Madrid — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
New Madrid — the short answer
New Madrid, Missouri: USDA zone 7b, about 252 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~252
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City 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 7b is New Madrid's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against New Madrid's 252-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in New Madrid
Each reading below is measured for New Madrid itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNew Madrid runs about 252 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
MeasuredNew Madrid sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 New Madrid is in
New Madrid sits in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at New Madrid's own centroid rather than borrowed from New Madrid County.
What Grows in New Madrid
Every plant below cleared New Madrid's own zone 7b and its 252-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in New Madrid?
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 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 20 — 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 New Madrid
Survey cells within 31 miles of New Madrid checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 161 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near New Madrid
Closest first, within ~10 miles of New Madrid. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- NEW MADRID SUB-OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- CARGILL INCBrownfields · 1600 ft
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #2064Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- EMMA MAXWELLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- ALLENS MFAUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- NEW MADRID COUNTY CENTRAL HIGH SCHLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- KOCH ASPHALTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- BROWN SAND & GRAVEL DBA HEARTLAND ASPHALT MATERIALSToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- SPECIALLOY ACQUISITION COMPANYToxics Release Inventory · 0.7 mi
- T23N R14W 34DCD1Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- MUNICIPAL LIGHT & POWERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- STAR MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from New Madrid'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 New Madrid.
Total Sites
67
within ~10 miles of New Madrid
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
7 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of New Madrid
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of New Madrid
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around New Madrid, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of New Madrid — Nitrate (32 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (7 sites). 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.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in New Madrid
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 New Madrid average
Your land is one point inside New Madrid
Everything above resolves to New Madrid 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 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 New Madrid Average
New Madrid Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across New Madrid
- ●One soil character for all of New Madrid
- ●Frost dates read at New Madrid's scale: Mar 13 to Nov 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not New Madrid's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in New Madrid
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in New Madrid, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that New Madrid averages can't show:
We read public map data around New Madrid — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the New Madrid average
How we know this about New Madrid
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 New Madrid’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 New Madrid
When does frost risk typically end in New Madrid?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in New Madrid typically lands around Mar 13, 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 3.
When is the first frost in New Madrid?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in New Madrid typically arrives around Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 6, so the watching starts about Oct 21 — about 252 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in New Madrid?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, New Madrid sees about 252 frost-free days — roughly Mar 13 through Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 3 to Nov 6, about 217 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in New Madrid?
The federal record around New Madrid shows 67 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (32), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles 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 New Madrid?
From about Oct 21 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 20 (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 20. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at New Madrid's scale — its 7b band and its 252-day season. Your yard writes its own version of New Madrid'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 New Madrid’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at New Madrid's own scale — its own ~252-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,881 acres it covers and 67 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- New Madrid's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- New Madrid's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 13 and Nov 20 and the ~252-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 67 documented contamination sites on the federal record near New Madrid, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- New Madrid's boundary and the 2,881 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~252-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at New Madrid's own centroid, the Mississippi Alluvial PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around New Madrid 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 New Madrid's 2,881 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom New Madrid County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom New Madrid 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 New Madrid County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among New Madrid's 2,881 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of New Madrid you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,881 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 New Madrid-wide figureread your own land →