Versailles, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Versailles, 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 Versailles 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 Versailles — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Versailles — the short answer
Versailles, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 223 days between hard freezes, across 2K 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
- 2K 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 Versailles's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Versailles's 223-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Versailles
Each reading below is measured for Versailles itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredVersailles 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
MeasuredVersailles 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 Versailles is in
Versailles sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Versailles's own centroid rather than borrowed from Morgan County.
What Grows in Versailles
Every plant below cleared Versailles'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 Versailles?
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. 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 Versailles
Survey cells within 31 miles of Versailles checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 337 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Versailles
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Versailles. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- T42N R18W 06ACD1Nitrate · 600 ft
- STEVES BODY AND PAINTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- CLARKS RETREADING & SERVICE INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- JIM'S DX STATION TOTALUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #1115Underground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- VERSAILLES JIFFY STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- KLEIN JCT SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- VERSAILLES EAGLE STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- T42N R18W 01CCA1Nitrate · 2100 ft
- A & R MOBILE SERVICES LLCBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- MORGAN COUNTY R-II BUS BARNUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- VERSAILLES, MO STOCKPILEToxics Release Inventory · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Versailles'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 Versailles.
Total Sites
160
within ~10 miles of Versailles
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Versailles
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Versailles
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Versailles, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Versailles — Mining (92 sites) and CAFO (14 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check your specific parcel in Versailles
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 Versailles average
Your land is one point inside Versailles
Everything above resolves to Versailles as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Versailles Average
Versailles Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Versailles
- ●One soil character for all of Versailles
- ●Frost dates read at Versailles's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Versailles's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Versailles
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Versailles, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Versailles averages can't show:
We read public map data around Versailles — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Versailles average
How we know this about Versailles
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 Versailles’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 Versailles
When does frost risk typically end in Versailles?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Versailles 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 Versailles?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Versailles 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 Versailles?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Versailles 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 Versailles?
The federal record around Versailles runs heavier than most — 160 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (92), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.1 miles 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 Versailles?
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 Versailles's scale — its 6b band and its 223-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Versailles'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 Versailles’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Versailles's own scale — its own ~223-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,534 acres it covers and 160 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Versailles's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Versailles's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 6 and the ~223-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 160 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Versailles, the closest Nitrate record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Versailles's boundary and the 1,534 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 Versailles's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Versailles 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 Versailles's 1,534 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 Versailles's 1,534 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Versailles you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,534 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.1 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 Versailles-wide figureread your own land →
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