Doña Ana County, in New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Doña Ana County lies within the Hatch / Mesilla Valley — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Doña Ana County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Doña Ana 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 Doña Ana County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Doña Ana County — the short answer
Doña Ana County, New Mexico: USDA zone 8b, about 264 days between hard freezes, across 2.4M acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~264
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 2.4M 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 8b is Doña Ana County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Doña Ana County's 264-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Doña Ana County
Across a year, Doña Ana County accumulates about 5,462 growing degree days above 50°F, about 2,289 more than the middle New Mexico county — ahead of every other New Mexico county. 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.
Winter banks about 1,473 hours below 45°F. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Doña Ana County
Across Doña Ana County, the ground is predominantly Aridisols, where Wink, Pintura, and Bluepoint are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a loamy sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.6–8.2, slightly alkaline. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Aridisols
Drainage
Well drained
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Doña Ana County
The USDA soil survey maps 80% of Doña Ana County as well drained — but another 14% drains differently: 6% somewhat excessively drained, 4% excessively drained.
Wink is the most extensive named soil at 8% of mapped acres, then Pintura (6%) and Bluepoint (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 Doña Ana County
Each reading below is measured for Doña Ana 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 Doña Ana 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 Doña Ana County runs about pH 7.6–8.2, 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
MeasuredDoña Ana County runs about 264 days between hard freezes — close to year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredDoña Ana County sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b.
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 Doña Ana County is in
Doña Ana County sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Doña Ana County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Doña Ana County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 264-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 Doña Ana 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 Jan 31; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 19 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. And with a calendar this mild, the honest answer is that planting barely stops — winter opens seasons colder regions never see.
Documented around Doña Ana County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Doña Ana County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 603 miles off. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly7 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Doña Ana County
USGS estimates 74,291 lb of Glyphosate on Doña Ana County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (13,635 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (10,725 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 Doña Ana County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Doña Ana County — 1,246 documented sites across 8 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 27 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Doña Ana 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 Doña Ana County
Closest first, across Doña Ana County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- GARFIELD NMUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- MBOWN-9 - 22S.01E.33.341 (USBR-15)Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- 22S.01E.33.321Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- 22S.01E.28.413Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- PIC QUIKUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- 22S.01E.28.300Nitrate · 1.3 mi
- 22S.01E.28.310Nitrate · 1.4 mi
- 23S.01E.03.442DNitrate · 1.5 mi
- 23S.01E.03.442CNitrate · 1.5 mi
- 23S.01E.03.442BNitrate · 1.5 mi
- 23S.01E.03.442ANitrate · 1.5 mi
- 23S.01E.03.442Nitrate · 1.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Doña Ana 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 Doña Ana County.
Severity Distribution
across Doña Ana County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Doña Ana County, two things run higher than the national average across Doña Ana County — CAFO (19 sites) and Superfund (27 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Doña Ana 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 Doña Ana County average
Your land is one point inside Doña Ana County
Everything above resolves to Doña Ana County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 2.4M 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 Doña Ana County Average
Doña Ana County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Doña Ana County
- ●One soil character for all of Doña Ana County
- ●Frost dates read at Doña Ana County's scale: Feb 28 to Nov 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Doña Ana County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Doña Ana County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Doña Ana County, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Doña Ana County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Doña Ana County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Doña Ana County average
How we know this about Doña Ana 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 Doña Ana County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Doña Ana County
When does frost risk typically end in Doña Ana County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Doña Ana County typically lands around Feb 28, 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 21.
How long is the growing season in Doña Ana County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Doña Ana County sees about 264 frost-free days — roughly Feb 28 through Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 21 to Nov 5, about 229 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Doña Ana County?
The federal record around Doña Ana County runs heavier than most — 1,246 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (542), 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 Doña Ana County's scale — its 8b band and its 264-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Doña Ana 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 Doña Ana County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Doña Ana County's own scale — its own ~264-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 1,246 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Doña Ana County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Doña Ana County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~264-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Doña Ana CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 1,246 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
- Doña Ana County's boundary and the 2,437,232 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~264-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Doña Ana County sitting wholly inside the Chihuahuan DesertsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Doña Ana County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Doña Ana 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 Doña Ana County — the ~264 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 Doña Ana County's 2,437,232 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 1,246 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 Doña Ana Countyread your own land →