Sweet Springs, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Expect cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Sweet Springs, 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 Sweet Springs 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 Sweet Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Sweet Springs — the short answer
Sweet Springs, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 217 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~217
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 1K 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 Sweet Springs's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Sweet Springs's 217-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Sweet Springs
Each reading below is measured for Sweet Springs itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSweet Springs runs about 217 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
MeasuredSweet Springs 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 Sweet Springs is in
Sweet Springs sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Sweet Springs's own centroid rather than borrowed from Saline County.
What Grows in Sweet Springs
Every plant below cleared Sweet Springs's own zone 6b and its 217-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Sweet Springs?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 31 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 3 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Sweet Springs
Survey cells within 31 miles of Sweet Springs checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 334 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Sweet Springs
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Sweet Springs. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DAN MERRICKUnderground Storage Tanks · 350 ft
- SWEET SPRINGS SKELLYUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- KENNY'S MFA SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- CITY OF SWEET SPRINGS, ST DEPT SHEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- COMMUNITY HOSPITAL, SWEET SPRINGSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #1119Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- T48N R23W 10ANitrate · 2600 ft
- T48N R23W 02CCA1Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- BREAK TIME CONVENIENCE STORE #3089Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #2840Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- SWEET SPRINGS VACANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- LITTON SHELL SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Sweet Springs'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 Sweet Springs.
Total Sites
101
within ~10 miles of Sweet Springs
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Sweet Springs
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Sweet Springs
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Sweet Springs, CAFO runs higher than the national average — 5 sites within ~10 miles of Sweet Springs. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check your specific parcel in Sweet Springs
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 Sweet Springs average
Your land is one point inside Sweet Springs
Everything above resolves to Sweet Springs as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Sweet Springs Average
Sweet Springs Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Sweet Springs
- ●One soil character for all of Sweet Springs
- ●Frost dates read at Sweet Springs's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Sweet Springs's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Sweet Springs
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Sweet Springs, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Sweet Springs averages can't show:
We read public map data around Sweet Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Sweet Springs average
How we know this about Sweet Springs
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 Sweet Springs’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 Sweet Springs
When does frost risk typically end in Sweet Springs?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Sweet Springs typically lands around Mar 31, 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 21.
When is the first frost in Sweet Springs?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Sweet Springs typically arrives around Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 20, so the watching starts about Oct 4 — about 217 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Sweet Springs?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Sweet Springs sees about 217 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 20, about 182 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Sweet Springs?
The federal record around Sweet Springs shows 101 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (58), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Sweet Springs?
From about Oct 4 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 3 (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 3. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Sweet Springs's scale — its 6b band and its 217-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Sweet Springs'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 Sweet Springs’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Sweet Springs's own scale — its own ~217-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,064 acres it covers and 101 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Sweet Springs's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Sweet Springs's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Nov 3 and the ~217-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 101 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Sweet Springs, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Sweet Springs's boundary and the 1,064 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~217-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Sweet Springs's own centroid, the Western Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Sweet Springs 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 Sweet Springs's 1,064 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Saline County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Saline 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 Saline County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Sweet Springs's 1,064 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Sweet Springs you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,064 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Sweet Springs-wide figureread your own land →
More in Missouri
Wider growing context
What grows across MissouriSweet Springs sits outside our named growing regions, so Missouri as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides