Pilot Grove, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Pilot Grove, 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 Pilot Grove 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 Pilot Grove — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Pilot Grove — the short answer
Pilot Grove, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 226 days between hard freezes, across 269 acres of city.
- 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
- City area
- 269 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 Pilot Grove's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pilot Grove's 226-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Pilot Grove
Each reading below is measured for Pilot Grove itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPilot Grove 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
MeasuredPilot Grove 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 Pilot Grove is in
Pilot Grove sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Pilot Grove's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cooper County.
What Grows in Pilot Grove
Every plant below cleared Pilot Grove'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 Pilot Grove?
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 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 Pilot Grove
Survey cells within 31 miles of Pilot Grove checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 318 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Pilot Grove
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Pilot Grove. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- T47N R18W 05AAC1Nitrate · 350 ft
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #1344Underground Storage Tanks · 350 ft
- NORMAN F. ELDRIDGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- T47N R18W 05AAA1Nitrate · 1300 ft
- ALBERT E ALLEYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- BOONVILLE SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- ROACHS STANDARD SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- CR'S MFAUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- GILBERT SKELLYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- WHITEMAN AFB CHARLIE-2Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- PILOT GROVE PWSPFAS · 2.8 mi
- KOLLMEYER FARM SUPPLYUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pilot Grove'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 Pilot Grove.
Total Sites
84
within ~10 miles of Pilot Grove
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Pilot Grove
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Pilot Grove
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Pilot Grove, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Pilot Grove — CAFO (7 sites) and Mining (7 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Pilot Grove
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 Pilot Grove average
Your land is one point inside Pilot Grove
Everything above resolves to Pilot Grove as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 269 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 Pilot Grove Average
Pilot Grove Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Pilot Grove
- ●One soil character for all of Pilot Grove
- ●Frost dates read at Pilot Grove's scale: Mar 27 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pilot Grove's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Pilot Grove
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pilot Grove, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pilot Grove averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pilot Grove — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pilot Grove average
How we know this about Pilot Grove
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 Pilot Grove’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 Pilot Grove
When does frost risk typically end in Pilot Grove?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pilot Grove 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 Pilot Grove?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Pilot Grove 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 Pilot Grove?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pilot Grove 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 Pilot Grove?
The federal record around Pilot Grove is a meaningful one — 84 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (34), the nearest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile 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 Pilot Grove?
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 Pilot Grove's scale — its 6b band and its 226-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pilot Grove'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 Pilot Grove’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Pilot Grove's own scale — its own ~226-day season between 28°F freezes, the 269 acres it covers and 84 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pilot Grove's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pilot Grove's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 27 and Nov 8 and the ~226-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 84 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Pilot Grove, the closest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Pilot Grove's boundary and the 269 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 Pilot Grove's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Pilot Grove 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 Pilot Grove's 269 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cooper County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cooper 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 Cooper County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Pilot Grove's 269 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Pilot Grove you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 269 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate 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 Pilot Grove-wide figureread your own land →
More in Missouri
Wider growing context
What grows across MissouriPilot Grove sits outside our named growing regions, so Missouri as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides