Pinhook, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Expect cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Pinhook, 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 Pinhook 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 Pinhook — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Pinhook — the short answer
Pinhook, Missouri: USDA zone 7b, about 246 days between hard freezes, across 91 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~246
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 91 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 Pinhook's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pinhook's 246-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Pinhook
Each reading below is measured for Pinhook itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPinhook runs about 246 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
MeasuredPinhook 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 Pinhook is in
Pinhook sits in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Pinhook's own centroid rather than borrowed from Mississippi County.
What Grows in Pinhook
Every plant below cleared Pinhook's own zone 7b and its 246-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Pinhook?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 16; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 16 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 17 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Pinhook
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Pinhook. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- T24N R16E 11DAB1Nitrate · 1.1 mi
- DELTA PORK FARMCAFO · 3.4 mi
- T24N R17E 15BCC1Nitrate · 3.4 mi
- KELLY BARKERUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.4 mi
- CUSTOM FUEL SERVICES LLCBrownfields · 5.5 mi
- T25N R17E 07CCD1Nitrate · 5.7 mi
- T25N R15E 36ABD1Nitrate · 6.5 mi
- T23N R16E 14AAA1Nitrate · 6.5 mi
- T24N R17E 35ADD1Nitrate · 6.5 mi
- STEWART FARMUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.6 mi
- EAST PRAIRIE R-2 BUS GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.7 mi
- K3B0016Nitrate · 6.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pinhook'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 Pinhook.
Total Sites
63
within ~10 miles of Pinhook
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 concentrated animal feeding operation
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Pinhook
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Pinhook
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Pinhook, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 38 sites within ~10 miles of Pinhook. 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 Pinhook
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 Pinhook average
Your land is one point inside Pinhook
Everything above resolves to Pinhook as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 91 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 Pinhook Average
Pinhook Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Pinhook
- ●One soil character for all of Pinhook
- ●Frost dates read at Pinhook's scale: Mar 16 to Nov 17
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pinhook's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Pinhook
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pinhook, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pinhook averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pinhook — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pinhook average
How we know this about Pinhook
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 Pinhook’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 Pinhook
When does frost risk typically end in Pinhook?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pinhook typically lands around Mar 16, 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 6.
When is the first frost in Pinhook?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Pinhook typically arrives around Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 3, so the watching starts about Oct 18 — about 246 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Pinhook?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pinhook sees about 246 frost-free days — roughly Mar 16 through Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 6 to Nov 3, about 211 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Pinhook?
The federal record around Pinhook shows 63 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (38), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.1 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 Pinhook?
From about Oct 18 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 17 (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 17. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Pinhook's scale — its 7b band and its 246-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pinhook'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 Pinhook’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Pinhook's own scale — its own ~246-day season between 28°F freezes, the 91 acres it covers and 63 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pinhook's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pinhook's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 16 and Nov 17 and the ~246-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 63 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Pinhook, the closest Nitrate record about 1.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Pinhook's boundary and the 91 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~246-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Pinhook's own centroid, the Mississippi Alluvial PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Pinhook's 91 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Mississippi County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Mississippi 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 Mississippi County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Pinhook's 91 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Pinhook you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 91 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 1.1 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 Pinhook-wide figureread your own land →