Pacific, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
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 Pacific, 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 Pacific 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 Pacific — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Pacific — the short answer
Pacific, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 225 days between hard freezes, across 4K 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 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~225
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 4K 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 Pacific's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pacific's 225-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Pacific
Each reading below is measured for Pacific itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPacific runs about 225 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
MeasuredPacific 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 Pacific is in
Pacific sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Pacific's own centroid rather than borrowed from Franklin County.
What Grows in Pacific
Every plant below cleared Pacific's own zone 6b and its 225-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Pacific?
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 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 6 — 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 Pacific
Survey cells within 31 miles of Pacific checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 265 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Pacific
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Pacific. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PACIFIC BUS COMPOUNDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- ZITZMAN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- PACIFIC MOTOR COUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- E.R. HOLTHAUSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- PACIFIC MOTO MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- CITY OF PACIFIC MO-STREET DEPTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- PRO TECH COLLISION CTRBrownfields · 2500 ft
- SHOW ME AUTO BODYBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #1047Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- PACIFIC STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- PACIFIC CENTRAL OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- JEFFERSON SMURFIT CORPORATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pacific'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 Pacific.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Pacific
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Pacific
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Pacific, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Pacific — Superfund (7 sites) and PFAS (4 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Pacific
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 Pacific average
Your land is one point inside Pacific
Everything above resolves to Pacific as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 Pacific Average
Pacific Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Pacific
- ●One soil character for all of Pacific
- ●Frost dates read at Pacific's scale: Mar 26 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pacific's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Pacific
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pacific, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pacific averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pacific — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pacific average
How we know this about Pacific
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 Pacific’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 Pacific
When does frost risk typically end in Pacific?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pacific 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 Pacific?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Pacific typically arrives around Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 23, so the watching starts about Oct 7 — about 225 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Pacific?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pacific sees about 225 frost-free days — roughly Mar 26 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 16 to Oct 23, about 190 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Pacific?
The federal record around Pacific is a meaningful one — 253 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (120), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Pacific?
From about Oct 7 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 6 (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 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Pacific's scale — its 6b band and its 225-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pacific'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 Pacific’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Pacific's own scale — its own ~225-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,404 acres it covers and 253 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pacific's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pacific's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 26 and Nov 6 and the ~225-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 253 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Pacific, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Pacific's boundary and the 4,404 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~225-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Pacific's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Pacific 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 Pacific's 4,404 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Franklin County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Franklin 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 Franklin County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Pacific's 4,404 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Pacific you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,404 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Pacific-wide figureread your own land →
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