Caballo, New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Caballo, 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 Caballo 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 Caballo — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Caballo — the short answer
Caballo, New Mexico: USDA zone 8a, about 249 days between hard freezes, across 628 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~249
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 628 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 8a is Caballo's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Caballo's 249-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Caballo
Each reading below is measured for Caballo itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCaballo runs about 249 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
MeasuredCaballo sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
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 Caballo is in
Caballo sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Caballo's own centroid rather than borrowed from Sierra County.
What Grows in Caballo
Every plant below cleared Caballo's own zone 8a and its 249-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Caballo?
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 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 14 — 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 Caballo
Survey cells within 31 miles of Caballo checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 567 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Caballo
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Caballo. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- COVARUBIAS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- 15S.05W.27.440Nitrate · 1.8 mi
- 15S.05W.27.413Nitrate · 1.9 mi
- 15S.05W.27.443ANitrate · 1.9 mi
- 15S.05W.27.443BNitrate · 1.9 mi
- 15S.05W.27.443A DUPNitrate · 1.9 mi
- 15S.05W.27.311BNitrate · 2.4 mi
- 15S.05W.28.000Nitrate · 3.0 mi
- 15S.05W.29.244Nitrate · 3.6 mi
- CABALLO LAKE TRADING POSTUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
- LAKEVIEW RV PARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
- CABALLO LAKE STATE PARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Caballo'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 Caballo.
Total Sites
131
within ~10 miles of Caballo
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Caballo
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Caballo
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Caballo, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Caballo — Mining (28 sites) and Nitrate (76 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Caballo
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 Caballo average
Your land is one point inside Caballo
Everything above resolves to Caballo as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 628 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 Caballo Average
Caballo Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Caballo
- ●One soil character for all of Caballo
- ●Frost dates read at Caballo's scale: Mar 10 to Nov 14
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Caballo's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Caballo
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Caballo, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Caballo averages can't show:
We read public map data around Caballo — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Caballo average
How we know this about Caballo
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 Caballo’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 Caballo
When does frost risk typically end in Caballo?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Caballo typically lands around Mar 10, 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 Mar 31.
When is the first frost in Caballo?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Caballo typically arrives around Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 31, so the watching starts about Oct 15 — about 249 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Caballo?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Caballo sees about 249 frost-free days — roughly Mar 10 through Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 31 to Oct 31, about 214 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Caballo?
The federal record around Caballo runs heavier than most — 131 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (76), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 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 Caballo?
From about Oct 15 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 14 (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 14. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Caballo's scale — its 8a band and its 249-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Caballo'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 Caballo’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Caballo's own scale — its own ~249-day season between 28°F freezes, the 628 acres it covers and 131 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Caballo's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Caballo's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 10 and Nov 14 and the ~249-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 131 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Caballo, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Caballo's boundary and the 628 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~249-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Caballo's own centroid, the Chihuahuan DesertsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Caballo 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 Caballo's 628 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Sierra County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Sierra 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 Sierra County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Caballo's 628 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Caballo you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 628 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 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 Caballo-wide figureread your own land →
More in New Mexico
Wider growing context
What grows across New MexicoCaballo sits outside our named growing regions, so New Mexico as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides