El Cerro Mission, New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, prickly pear, 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 El Cerro Mission, 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 El Cerro Mission 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 El Cerro Mission — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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El Cerro Mission — the short answer
El Cerro Mission, New Mexico: USDA zone 7b, about 207 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~207
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 4K 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 7b is El Cerro Mission's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against El Cerro Mission's 207-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in El Cerro Mission
Each reading below is measured for El Cerro Mission itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredEl Cerro Mission runs about 207 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
MeasuredEl Cerro Mission 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 El Cerro Mission is in
El Cerro Mission sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at El Cerro Mission's own centroid rather than borrowed from Valencia County.
What Grows in El Cerro Mission
Every plant below cleared El Cerro Mission's own zone 7b and its 207-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in El Cerro Mission?
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 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 30 — 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 El Cerro Mission
Survey cells within 31 miles of El Cerro Mission checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 473 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near El Cerro Mission
Closest first, within ~10 miles of El Cerro Mission. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MANA MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- LOS LUNAS CHEMICAL CACHESuperfund · 1.0 mi
- J & A QUICKSTOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- SOUTHWAY CONSTRUCTION- ORONA PITBrownfields · 2.1 mi
- 06N.02E.03.344Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- 07N.03E.30.321Nitrate · 2.8 mi
- MARBLE FABRICATIONBrownfields · 3.1 mi
- 06N.02E.24.144Nitrate · 3.4 mi
- LOS LUNAS SALVAGE & TRUCKINGBrownfields · 3.5 mi
- J AND J COUNTRY MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- VEGAS ROADUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.9 mi
- OLD VALENCIA SCHOOL PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from El Cerro Mission'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 El Cerro Mission.
Total Sites
175
within ~10 miles of El Cerro Mission
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of El Cerro Mission
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of El Cerro Mission
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around El Cerro Mission, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of El Cerro Mission — Superfund (3 sites) and Nitrate (60 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in El Cerro Mission
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 El Cerro Mission average
Your land is one point inside El Cerro Mission
Everything above resolves to El Cerro Mission as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 El Cerro Mission Average
El Cerro Mission Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across El Cerro Mission
- ●One soil character for all of El Cerro Mission
- ●Frost dates read at El Cerro Mission's scale: Apr 6 to Oct 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not El Cerro Mission's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in El Cerro Mission
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in El Cerro Mission, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that El Cerro Mission averages can't show:
We read public map data around El Cerro Mission — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the El Cerro Mission average
How we know this about El Cerro Mission
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 El Cerro Mission’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 El Cerro Mission
When does frost risk typically end in El Cerro Mission?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in El Cerro Mission typically lands around Apr 6, 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 27.
When is the first frost in El Cerro Mission?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in El Cerro Mission typically arrives around Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 16, so the watching starts about Sep 30 — about 207 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in El Cerro Mission?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, El Cerro Mission sees about 207 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 16, about 172 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in El Cerro Mission?
The federal record around El Cerro Mission is a meaningful one — 175 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (64), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 I protect my plants from frost in El Cerro Mission?
From about Sep 30 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 30 (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 30. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at El Cerro Mission's scale — its 7b band and its 207-day season. Your yard writes its own version of El Cerro Mission'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 El Cerro Mission’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at El Cerro Mission's own scale — its own ~207-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,765 acres it covers and 175 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- El Cerro Mission's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- El Cerro Mission's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 6 and Oct 30 and the ~207-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 175 documented contamination sites on the federal record near El Cerro Mission, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- El Cerro Mission's boundary and the 3,765 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~207-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at El Cerro Mission's own centroid, the Arizona/New Mexico PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around El Cerro Mission 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 El Cerro Mission's 3,765 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Valencia County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Valencia 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 Valencia County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among El Cerro Mission's 3,765 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of El Cerro Mission you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,765 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 El Cerro Mission-wide figureread your own land →