Chilili, New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, 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 Chilili, 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 Chilili 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 Chilili — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Chilili — the short answer
Chilili, New Mexico: USDA zone 6b, about 179 days between hard freezes, across 636 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~179
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 636 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 Chilili's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Chilili's 179-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Chilili
Each reading below is measured for Chilili itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredChilili runs about 179 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
MeasuredChilili 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 Chilili is in
Chilili sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Temperate Sierras. That is read at Chilili's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Bernalillo County is mostly Arizona/New Mexico Plateau. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Chilili
Every plant below cleared Chilili's own zone 6b and its 179-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Chilili?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 27; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 24 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 20 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. As the window narrows, the plantings just get faster — fall brassicas, then greens, then garlic to finish.
Documented around Chilili
Survey cells within 31 miles of Chilili checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 478 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Chilili
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Chilili. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 08N.07E.29.321Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- 08N.07E.29.324Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- 08N.07E.29.324 DUPNitrate · 0.6 mi
- 08N.07E.29.324ANitrate · 0.6 mi
- 08N.07E.28.221Nitrate · 1.4 mi
- 08N.07E.16.141Nitrate · 2.5 mi
- 08N.07E.34.222Nitrate · 2.8 mi
- 08N.06E.23.211Nitrate · 2.8 mi
- 08N.06E.14.131Nitrate · 3.4 mi
- 08N.06E.11.222Nitrate · 3.8 mi
- 08N.06E.11.313Nitrate · 3.9 mi
- 08N.06E.11.311Nitrate · 3.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Chilili'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 Chilili.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Chilili
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Chilili
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Chilili, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 138 sites within ~10 miles of Chilili. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Chilili
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 Chilili average
Your land is one point inside Chilili
Everything above resolves to Chilili as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 636 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 Chilili Average
Chilili Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Chilili
- ●One soil character for all of Chilili
- ●Frost dates read at Chilili's scale: Apr 24 to Oct 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Chilili's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Chilili
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Chilili, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Chilili averages can't show:
We read public map data around Chilili — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Chilili average
How we know this about Chilili
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 Chilili’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 Chilili
When does frost risk typically end in Chilili?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Chilili typically lands around Apr 24, 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 15.
When is the first frost in Chilili?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Chilili typically arrives around Oct 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 6, so the watching starts about Sep 20 — about 179 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Chilili?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Chilili sees about 179 frost-free days — roughly Apr 24 through Oct 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 15 to Oct 6, about 144 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Chilili?
The federal record around Chilili shows 153 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (138), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.5 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Chilili?
From about Sep 20 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 20 (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 20. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Chilili's scale — its 6b band and its 179-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Chilili'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 Chilili’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Chilili's own scale — its own ~179-day season between 28°F freezes, the 636 acres it covers and 153 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Chilili's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Chilili's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 24 and Oct 20 and the ~179-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 153 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Chilili, the closest Nitrate record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Chilili's boundary and the 636 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~179-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Chilili sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Chilili 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 Chilili's 636 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Bernalillo County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Bernalillo 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 Bernalillo County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Chilili's 636 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Chilili you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 636 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.5 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 Chilili-wide figureread your own land →