Quay County, in New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Quay County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Quay 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 Quay County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Quay County — the short answer
Quay County, New Mexico: USDA zone 7a, about 221 days between hard freezes, across 1.8M acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~221
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 1.8M 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 7a is Quay County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Quay County's 221-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Quay County
Across a year, Quay County accumulates about 4,355 growing degree days above 50°F, about 1,182 more than the middle New Mexico county — ahead of 25 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.
Winter banks about 2,138 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 Quay County
Across Quay County, the ground is predominantly Aridisols, where Quay, Latom, and Olton are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.2–8.2, slightly alkaline. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Aridisols
Drainage
Well drained
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Quay County
The USDA soil survey maps 89% of Quay County as well drained — but another 4% drains differently: 4% excessively drained, 1% moderately well drained.
Quay is the most extensive named soil at 8% of mapped acres, then Latom (7%) and Olton (6%).
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 Quay County
Each reading below is measured for Quay 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 Quay County are well drained, in hydrologic group B — 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 Quay County runs about pH 7.2–8.2, 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
MeasuredQuay County runs about 221 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
MeasuredQuay County 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 Quay County is in
Quay County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Southwestern Tablelands (63%) and High Plains (37%). 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 Quay County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Quay County's own USDA zone 7a and its own 221-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 Quay County?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. 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 7 — 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 Quay County
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Quay County
USGS estimates 30,531 lb of 2,4-d on Quay County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (28,068 lb) and Atrazine (16,603 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 Quay County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Quay County — 152 documented sites across 8 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site (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 Quay 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 Quay County
Closest first, across Quay County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Canadian River Copper DepositsMining · 0.6 mi
- San Jon AreaMining · 3.0 mi
- TUCUMCARI NM FSSUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.2 mi
- TUCUMCARI MUNICIPAL AIRPORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.2 mi
- PACHECO CONSTRUCTION AND TRUCKINGBrownfields · 7.5 mi
- HOLIDAY CONOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 8.7 mi
- FAST STOP - NO21Underground Storage Tanks · 8.7 mi
- HOLIDAY SHELL AUnderground Storage Tanks · 8.8 mi
- NMDOT TUCUMCARI PATROL YARD 44 42Underground Storage Tanks · 9.1 mi
- Little Rattler MineMining · 9.1 mi
- TUCUMCARI REFINED PRODUCTS TERMINALToxics Release Inventory · 9.1 mi
- MONTAGUE BERTUnderground Storage Tanks · 9.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Quay 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 Quay County.
Total Sites
152
across Quay County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Severity Distribution
across Quay County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Quay County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 116 sites across Quay County. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Quay 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 Quay County average
Your land is one point inside Quay County
Everything above resolves to Quay County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 1.8M 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 Quay County Average
Quay County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Quay County
- ●One soil character for all of Quay County
- ●Frost dates read at Quay County's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Quay County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Quay County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Quay County, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Quay County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Quay County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Quay County average
How we know this about Quay 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 Quay County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Quay County
When does frost risk typically end in Quay County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Quay 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 Quay County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Quay County sees about 221 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 24, about 186 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Quay County?
The federal record around Quay County is a meaningful one — 152 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (116), the nearest Mining record about 0.6 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.
Everything above is measured at Quay County's scale — its 7a band and its 221-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Quay 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 Quay County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Quay County's own scale — its own ~221-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 152 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Quay County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Quay County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~221-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Quay CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 152 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Mining record about 0.6 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Quay County's boundary and the 1,839,329 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~221-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Quay County spans, Southwestern Tablelands the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Quay County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Quay 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 Quay County — the ~221 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 Quay County's 1,839,329 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 152 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 Quay Countyread your own land →