Syracuse, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Syracuse, 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 Syracuse 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 Syracuse — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Syracuse — the short answer
Syracuse, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 223 days between hard freezes, across 240 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 28
- 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
- ~223
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 240 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 Syracuse's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Syracuse's 223-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Syracuse
Each reading below is measured for Syracuse itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSyracuse runs about 223 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
MeasuredSyracuse 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 Syracuse is in
Syracuse sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Syracuse's own centroid rather than borrowed from Morgan County.
What Grows in Syracuse
Every plant below cleared Syracuse's own zone 6b and its 223-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Syracuse?
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 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 28 (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 Syracuse
Survey cells within 31 miles of Syracuse checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 326 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Syracuse
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Syracuse. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- LUCKY 6Underground Storage Tanks · 75 ft
- T45N R18W 14BBB1Nitrate · 300 ft
- P. Siegel ProspectMining · 2100 ft
- WHITEMAN AFB DELTA-11Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- THOMAS HOG MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- TIPTON MAINT BLDGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- Burns Brothers MineMining · 2.1 mi
- FIRMAN FARMCAFO · 2.1 mi
- MIDWEST INDEPENDENT TRANSPORTBrownfields · 2.3 mi
- Mcneil ProspectMining · 2.3 mi
- Evans Barite ProspectMining · 2.3 mi
- Cohn and Redman MineMining · 2.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Syracuse'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 Syracuse.
Total Sites
145
within ~10 miles of Syracuse
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Syracuse
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Syracuse
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Syracuse, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Syracuse — CAFO (17 sites) and Mining (62 sites). 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.
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 Syracuse
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 Syracuse average
Your land is one point inside Syracuse
Everything above resolves to Syracuse as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 240 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 Syracuse Average
Syracuse Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Syracuse
- ●One soil character for all of Syracuse
- ●Frost dates read at Syracuse's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Syracuse's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Syracuse
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Syracuse, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Syracuse averages can't show:
We read public map data around Syracuse — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Syracuse average
How we know this about Syracuse
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 Syracuse’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 Syracuse
When does frost risk typically end in Syracuse?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Syracuse typically lands around Mar 28, 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 18.
When is the first frost in Syracuse?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Syracuse 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 223 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Syracuse?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Syracuse sees about 223 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Oct 23, about 188 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Syracuse?
The federal record around Syracuse runs heavier than most — 145 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (62), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Syracuse?
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 Syracuse's scale — its 6b band and its 223-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Syracuse'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 Syracuse’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Syracuse's own scale — its own ~223-day season between 28°F freezes, the 240 acres it covers and 145 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Syracuse's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Syracuse's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 6 and the ~223-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 145 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Syracuse, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Syracuse's boundary and the 240 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~223-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Syracuse's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Syracuse 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 Syracuse's 240 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Morgan County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Morgan 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 Morgan County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Syracuse's 240 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Syracuse you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 240 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 Syracuse-wide figureread your own land →
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