Penermon, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Penermon, 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 Penermon 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 Penermon — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Penermon — the short answer
Penermon, Missouri: USDA zone 7b, about 252 days between hard freezes, across 135 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~252
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 135 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 Penermon's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Penermon's 252-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Penermon
Each reading below is measured for Penermon itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPenermon 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
MeasuredPenermon 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 Penermon is in
Penermon sits in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Penermon's own centroid rather than borrowed from Stoddard County.
What Grows in Penermon
Every plant below cleared Penermon'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 Penermon?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 14 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 21 — 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 Penermon
Survey cells within 31 miles of Penermon checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 180 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Penermon
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Penermon. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- RICHLAND R-I BUS GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- WALTER HENDERSONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- ESSEX ONE STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- T25N R11E 15BBC2Nitrate · 2.3 mi
- SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- T25N R12E 08Nitrate · 3.6 mi
- T25N R12E 08ACC1Nitrate · 3.6 mi
- TYSON CHICKEN INC GRAYRIDGE FACILITYBrownfields · 3.9 mi
- GLOBAL FUELS LLCToxics Release Inventory · 4.0 mi
- T24N R12E 07CCBNitrate · 4.4 mi
- T26N R11E 33CDC1Nitrate · 4.5 mi
- T25N R10E 15AAD1Nitrate · 5.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Penermon'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 Penermon.
Total Sites
125
within ~10 miles of Penermon
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
8 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Penermon
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Penermon
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Penermon, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Penermon — Nitrate (40 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (8 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Penermon
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 Penermon average
Your land is one point inside Penermon
Everything above resolves to Penermon as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 135 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 Penermon Average
Penermon Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Penermon
- ●One soil character for all of Penermon
- ●Frost dates read at Penermon's scale: Mar 14 to Nov 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Penermon's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Penermon
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Penermon, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Penermon averages can't show:
We read public map data around Penermon — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Penermon average
How we know this about Penermon
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 Penermon’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 Penermon
When does frost risk typically end in Penermon?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Penermon typically lands around Mar 14, 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 4.
When is the first frost in Penermon?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Penermon typically arrives around Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 7, so the watching starts about Oct 22 — about 252 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Penermon?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Penermon sees about 252 frost-free days — roughly Mar 14 through Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 4 to Nov 7, about 217 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Penermon?
The federal record around Penermon shows 125 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (63), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.7 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 Penermon?
From about Oct 22 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 21 (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 21. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Penermon's scale — its 7b band and its 252-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Penermon'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 Penermon’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Penermon's own scale — its own ~252-day season between 28°F freezes, the 135 acres it covers and 125 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Penermon's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Penermon's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 14 and Nov 21 and the ~252-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 125 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Penermon, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Penermon's boundary and the 135 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 Penermon's own centroid, the Mississippi Alluvial PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Penermon 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 Penermon's 135 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Stoddard County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Stoddard 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 Stoddard County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Penermon's 135 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Penermon you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 135 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.7 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 Penermon-wide figureread your own land →
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