Catron County, in New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Catron County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Catron 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 Catron County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Catron County — the short answer
Catron County, New Mexico: USDA zone 6b, about 144 days between hard freezes, across 4.4M acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- May 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~144
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 4.4M 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 6b is Catron County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Catron County's 144-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Catron County
Across a year, Catron County accumulates about 1,804 growing degree days above 50°F, about 1,369 fewer than the middle New Mexico county — ahead of 3 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 Catron County
Across Catron County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Catman, Datil, and Loarc are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.0–7.6, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Catron County
The USDA soil survey maps 95% of Catron County as well drained — but another 5% drains differently: 5% excessively drained.
Catman is the most extensive named soil at 8% of mapped acres, then Datil (6%) and Loarc (5%).
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 Catron County
Each reading below is measured for Catron 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 Catron County are well drained, in hydrologic group D — 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 Catron County runs about pH 7.0–7.6, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredCatron County runs about 144 days between hard freezes — a short growing season.
Long-maturing crops like melons, sweet potatoes, and winter squash can run out of runway before the first hard freeze, ripening late or not at all.
Lead with fast-maturing varieties, and stretch the season on both ends with cold frames, low tunnels, or a greenhouse.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredCatron County 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 Catron County is in
Catron County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Arizona/New Mexico Mountains (68%) and Arizona/New Mexico Plateau (32%). 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 Catron County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Catron County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 144-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 Catron County?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Apr 24; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near May 22 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 13 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. When the window is tight, the fall moves are quick ones — baby greens, radishes, and garlic set for next season.
Documented around Catron County
- monarch butterfly3 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Catron County
USGS estimates 4,457 lb of Dicamba on Catron County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (2,277 lb) and Triclopyr (1,763 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 Catron County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Catron County — 233 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Catron County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Catron County
Closest first, across Catron County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 04S.15W.26.334Nitrate · 1.2 mi
- 05S.15W.09.300Nitrate · 1.8 mi
- 04S.15W.32.12234Nitrate · 2.5 mi
- 05S.15W.22.330Nitrate · 3.4 mi
- 05S.14W.05.130Nitrate · 3.6 mi
- 05S.14W.09.243BNitrate · 5.3 mi
- 05S.14W.28.31141Nitrate · 6.1 mi
- 05S.14W.33.110 DUPNitrate · 6.5 mi
- 04S.16W.28.211Nitrate · 7.3 mi
- 04S.14W.23.230Nitrate · 7.7 mi
- 05S.14W.13.100Nitrate · 7.9 mi
- 06S.14W.07.330Nitrate · 8.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Catron 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 Catron County.
Total Sites
233
across Catron County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Catron County
Severity Distribution
across Catron County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Catron County, two things run higher than the national average across Catron County — Mining (37 sites) and Nitrate (146 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Catron 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 Catron County average
Your land is one point inside Catron County
Everything above resolves to Catron County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 4.4M 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 Catron County Average
Catron County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Catron County
- ●One soil character for all of Catron County
- ●Frost dates read at Catron County's scale: May 22 to Oct 13
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Catron County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Catron County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Catron County, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Catron County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Catron County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Catron County average
How we know this about Catron 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 Catron County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Catron County
When does frost risk typically end in Catron County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Catron County typically lands around May 22, 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 Jun 12.
How long is the growing season in Catron County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Catron County sees about 144 frost-free days — roughly May 22 through Oct 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Jun 12 to Sep 29, about 109 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Catron County?
The federal record around Catron County is a meaningful one — 233 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (146), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.2 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 gardeners stretch the season in Catron County?
With about 144 frost-free days between hard freezes, Catron County rewards the classic extension moves: floating row cover buys roughly two to four extra weeks at each shoulder — on this season that is a working window nearer 172 to 200 days — and cold frames or low tunnels buy more. Starting transplants indoors ahead of the May 22 hard-freeze normal stretches the season without touching the calendar.
Everything above is measured at Catron County's scale — its 6b band and its 144-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Catron 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 Catron County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Catron County's own scale — its own ~144-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 233 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Catron County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Catron County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~144-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Catron CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 233 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 1.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Catron County's boundary and the 4,431,476 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~144-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Catron County spans, Arizona/New Mexico Mountains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Catron County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Catron 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 Catron County — the ~144 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 Catron County's 4,431,476 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 233 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 Catron Countyread your own land →