Bernalillo County, in New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Bernalillo County lies within the Middle Rio Grande / Albuquerque — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Bernalillo County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Bernalillo County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Bernalillo County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Bernalillo County — the short answer
Bernalillo County, New Mexico: USDA zone 7b, about 217 days between hard freezes, across 743K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~217
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 743K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 7b is Bernalillo County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bernalillo County's 217-day season, see what your own ground reads.
One county, several growing seasons
Bernalillo County's hard-freeze record runs about 217 days between freezes — but that is the county-wide average, and several towns inside it carry a markedly different season in their own 30-year record: Cedro at about 182 days, Ponderosa Pine at 182 and Sandia Park at 182 (against the county's ~217).
Those are measured records, not estimates. If you garden in one of these pockets, plant against your own town's season rather than the county's ~217-day average.
NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS (1991–2020), 30-year daily minimum record. Only held-out towns carrying their own record are named — a town with no record of its own is absent rather than estimated, and a county with nothing qualifying shows no spread at all.
Heat in Bernalillo County
Across a year, Bernalillo County accumulates about 3,759 growing degree days above 50°F, about 586 more than the middle New Mexico county — ahead of 19 of New Mexico’s 33 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Bernalillo County
Across Bernalillo County, the ground is predominantly Aridisols, where Bluepoint, Madurez, and Wink are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a loamy fine sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.9–8.2, moderately alkaline. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A soils.
Soil order
Aridisols
Drainage
Well drained
Hydric soils
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Bernalillo County
The USDA soil survey maps 71% of Bernalillo County as well drained — but another 23% drains differently: 21% somewhat excessively drained, 2% excessively drained.
Bluepoint is the most extensive named soil at 17% of mapped acres, then Madurez (10%) and Wink (7%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Bernalillo County
Each reading below is measured for Bernalillo County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Bernalillo County are well drained, in hydrologic group A — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Bernalillo County runs about pH 7.9–8.2, on the alkaline side.
Many vegetables cope, but acid-lovers like blueberries struggle, and iron and manganese lock up above about pH 7.5 — leaves yellow between the veins even in rich soil.
Elemental sulfur and generous organic matter lower pH slowly for the beds that need it; test first so you add only what the soil actually calls for.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredBernalillo County runs about 217 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
MeasuredBernalillo County sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Bernalillo County is in
Bernalillo County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Arizona/New Mexico Plateau (71%) and Arizona/New Mexico Mountains (29%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Bernalillo County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Bernalillo County's own USDA zone 7b and its own 217-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile.
Is it too late to plant in Bernalillo County?
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 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 31 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 3 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Bernalillo County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Bernalillo County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 455 miles off. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle33 documented records
- monarch butterfly124 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Bernalillo County
USGS estimates 1,483 lb of Glyphosate on Bernalillo County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Dicamba (811 lb) and Bentazone (485 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Bernalillo County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Bernalillo County — 3,918 documented sites across 8 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 35 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Bernalillo County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Bernalillo County
Closest first, across Bernalillo County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- GIANT DBA GASMAN 7446Underground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- 10N.03E.31.1314Nitrate · 1100 ft
- EL GALLO LLANTERA & AUTOMOTIVEBrownfields · 1100 ft
- 10N.03E.31.232Nitrate · 1900 ft
- RAINBO BAKINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- MOYA PHILLIPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- ALLSUPS - NO197Underground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- HERRERA SCHOOL BUSES AND COACHES INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- ISLETA U PUMP ITUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- SMITH'S 571Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- HERRERA SCHOOL BUSES AND COACHES INC 1Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- 10N.02E.25.434PNitrate · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bernalillo County'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 Bernalillo County.
Severity Distribution
across Bernalillo County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bernalillo County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 1,314 sites across Bernalillo County. 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 Bernalillo County
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 Bernalillo County average
Your land is one point inside Bernalillo County
Everything above resolves to Bernalillo County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 743K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Bernalillo County Average
Bernalillo County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Bernalillo County
- ●One soil character for all of Bernalillo County
- ●Frost dates read at Bernalillo County's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bernalillo County's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Bernalillo County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bernalillo County, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bernalillo County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bernalillo County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bernalillo County average
How we know this about Bernalillo County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Bernalillo County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Bernalillo County
When does frost risk typically end in Bernalillo County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bernalillo County typically lands around Mar 31, 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 21.
How long is the growing season in Bernalillo County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bernalillo County sees about 217 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 20, about 182 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bernalillo County?
The federal record around Bernalillo County runs heavier than most — 3,918 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,356), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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.
Everything above is measured at Bernalillo County's scale — its 7b band and its 217-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bernalillo County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads New Mexico's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Bernalillo County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Bernalillo County's own scale — its own ~217-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 3,918 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bernalillo County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bernalillo County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~217-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Bernalillo CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 3,918 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Bernalillo County's boundary and the 743,196 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~217-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Bernalillo County spans, Arizona/New Mexico Plateau the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Bernalillo County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Bernalillo County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every New Mexico grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom New Mexico
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Bernalillo County — the ~217 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bernalillo County's 743,196 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 3,918 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Bernalillo Countyread your own land →