Blanco, New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
The conditions favor cabbage, pawpaw, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Blanco, 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 Blanco 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 Blanco — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Blanco — the short answer
Blanco, New Mexico: USDA zone 7a, about 193 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~193
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 4K 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 7a is Blanco's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Blanco's 193-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Blanco
Each reading below is measured for Blanco itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBlanco runs about 193 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredBlanco sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Blanco is in
Blanco sits in the Colorado Plateaus — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Blanco's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: San Juan County is mostly Arizona/New Mexico Plateau. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Blanco
Every plant below cleared Blanco's own zone 7a and its 193-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Blanco?
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 Mar 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 18 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 28 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
What's on the federal record near Blanco
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Blanco. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 29N.09W.03.233Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- CIRCLE S NUMBER FOURUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- 29N.09W.17.2421Nitrate · 2.8 mi
- 29N.09W.17.232Nitrate · 2.8 mi
- 29N.09W.07.4241Nitrate · 2.9 mi
- BLANCO SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
- 29N.09W.18.3113Nitrate · 4.1 mi
- JICARILLA RANGER STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- BLM-BLANCO LANDFILLSuperfund · 4.1 mi
- ABES STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- 29N.10W.24.212Nitrate · 4.6 mi
- CENTRAL CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL DIBrownfields · 4.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Blanco'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 Blanco.
Total Sites
40
within ~10 miles of Blanco
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Blanco
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Blanco
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Blanco, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Blanco — PFAS (3 sites) and Nitrate (14 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Blanco
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 Blanco average
Your land is one point inside Blanco
Everything above resolves to Blanco as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 Blanco Average
Blanco Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Blanco
- ●One soil character for all of Blanco
- ●Frost dates read at Blanco's scale: Apr 18 to Oct 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Blanco's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Blanco
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Blanco, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Blanco averages can't show:
We read public map data around Blanco — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Blanco average
How we know this about Blanco
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 Blanco’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 Blanco
When does frost risk typically end in Blanco?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Blanco typically lands around Apr 18, 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 May 9.
When is the first frost in Blanco?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Blanco typically arrives around Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 14, so the watching starts about Sep 28 — about 193 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Blanco?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Blanco sees about 193 frost-free days — roughly Apr 18 through Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 9 to Oct 14, about 158 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Blanco?
The federal record around Blanco is a meaningful one — 40 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (14), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.6 miles 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 Blanco?
From about Sep 28 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 Oct 28 (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 Oct 28. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Blanco's scale — its 7a band and its 193-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Blanco'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 Blanco’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Blanco's own scale — its own ~193-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,933 acres it covers and 40 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Blanco's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Blanco's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 18 and Oct 28 and the ~193-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 40 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Blanco, the closest Nitrate record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Blanco's boundary and the 3,933 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~193-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Blanco sits in the Colorado Plateaus — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Blanco's 3,933 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom San Juan County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom San Juan County
- The growing challenges every New Mexico grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom New Mexico
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom San Juan County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Blanco's 3,933 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Blanco you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,933 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.6 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 Blanco-wide figureread your own land →