Carrizozo, New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Carrizozo, 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 Carrizozo 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 Carrizozo — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Carrizozo — the short answer
Carrizozo, New Mexico: USDA zone 7a, about 213 days between hard freezes, across 5K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~213
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 5K 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 Carrizozo's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Carrizozo's 213-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Carrizozo
Each reading below is measured for Carrizozo itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCarrizozo runs about 213 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
MeasuredCarrizozo 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 Carrizozo is in
Carrizozo sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Carrizozo's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Lincoln County is mostly Southwestern Tablelands. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Carrizozo
Every plant below cleared Carrizozo's own zone 7a and its 213-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Carrizozo?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 5 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Carrizozo
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Carrizozo. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CIMARRON MINING CORP.Superfund · 1.4 mi
- ORTIZ STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- VALERO EXPRESS MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- ALLSUPS CONVENIENCE STORE 132Underground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- CARRIZOZO CONOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- CARRIZOZO FINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- CARRIZOZO DEPOTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- LAMAY DISTRIBUTING CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- 08S.10E.13.133Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- 08S.10E.11.000Nitrate · 2.2 mi
- 08S.10E.14.221Nitrate · 2.3 mi
- 08S.10E.14.223Nitrate · 2.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Carrizozo'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 Carrizozo.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Carrizozo
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Carrizozo
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Carrizozo, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Carrizozo — Mining (42 sites) and Nitrate (32 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 Carrizozo
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 Carrizozo average
Your land is one point inside Carrizozo
Everything above resolves to Carrizozo as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 5K 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 Carrizozo Average
Carrizozo Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Carrizozo
- ●One soil character for all of Carrizozo
- ●Frost dates read at Carrizozo's scale: Apr 6 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Carrizozo's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Carrizozo
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Carrizozo, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Carrizozo averages can't show:
We read public map data around Carrizozo — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Carrizozo average
How we know this about Carrizozo
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 Carrizozo’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 Carrizozo
When does frost risk typically end in Carrizozo?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Carrizozo typically lands around Apr 6, 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 27.
When is the first frost in Carrizozo?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Carrizozo typically arrives around Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 22, so the watching starts about Oct 6 — about 213 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Carrizozo?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Carrizozo sees about 213 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 22, about 178 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Carrizozo?
The federal record around Carrizozo runs heavier than most — 86 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (42), the nearest Superfund record about 1.4 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 Carrizozo?
From about Oct 6 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 5 (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 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Carrizozo's scale — its 7a band and its 213-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Carrizozo'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 Carrizozo’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Carrizozo's own scale — its own ~213-day season between 28°F freezes, the 5,351 acres it covers and 86 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Carrizozo's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Carrizozo's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 6 and Nov 5 and the ~213-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 86 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Carrizozo, the closest Superfund record about 1.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Carrizozo's boundary and the 5,351 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~213-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Carrizozo sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Carrizozo's 5,351 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Lincoln County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Lincoln 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 Lincoln County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Carrizozo's 5,351 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Carrizozo you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 5,351 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Superfund record about 1.4 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 Carrizozo-wide figureread your own land →
More in New Mexico
Wider growing context
What grows across New MexicoCarrizozo sits outside our named growing regions, so New Mexico as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides