Faywood, New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
On paper, cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Faywood, 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 Faywood 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 Faywood — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Faywood — the short answer
Faywood, New Mexico: USDA zone 8a, about 218 days between hard freezes, across 337 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~218
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 337 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 8a is Faywood's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Faywood's 218-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Faywood
Each reading below is measured for Faywood itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFaywood runs about 218 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
MeasuredFaywood sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
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 Faywood is in
Faywood sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Temperate Sierras. That is read at Faywood's own centroid rather than borrowed from Grant County.
What Grows in Faywood
Every plant below cleared Faywood's own zone 8a and its 218-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Faywood?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 9 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Faywood
Survey cells within 31 miles of Faywood checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 541 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Faywood
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Faywood. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- LOWER MIMBRES FIRE DEPARTMENT 1Underground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- 19S.10W.21.24442Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- 19S.10W.22.43434Nitrate · 1.1 mi
- 19S.10W.31.434Nitrate · 2.5 mi
- 20S.10W.10.120Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- 19S.10W.09.33423Nitrate · 2.7 mi
- 19S.10W.09.11221Nitrate · 3.6 mi
- 20S.09W.08.11323Nitrate · 5.0 mi
- 18S.10W.34.13142Nitrate · 5.3 mi
- 20S.10W.28.400Nitrate · 6.1 mi
- 18S.10W.29.23334Nitrate · 6.3 mi
- 20S.09W.09.324Nitrate · 6.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Faywood'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 Faywood.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Faywood
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Faywood
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Faywood, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Faywood — Mining (26 sites) and Nitrate (56 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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 Faywood
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 Faywood average
Your land is one point inside Faywood
Everything above resolves to Faywood as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 337 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 Faywood Average
Faywood Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Faywood
- ●One soil character for all of Faywood
- ●Frost dates read at Faywood's scale: Apr 5 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Faywood's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Faywood
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Faywood, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Faywood averages can't show:
We read public map data around Faywood — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Faywood average
How we know this about Faywood
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 Faywood’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 Faywood
When does frost risk typically end in Faywood?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Faywood typically lands around Apr 5, 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 26.
When is the first frost in Faywood?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Faywood typically arrives around Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 26, so the watching starts about Oct 10 — about 218 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Faywood?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Faywood sees about 218 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 26, about 183 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Faywood?
The federal record around Faywood runs heavier than most — 84 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (56), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Faywood?
From about Oct 10 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 Nov 9 (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 Nov 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Faywood's scale — its 8a band and its 218-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Faywood'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 Faywood’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Faywood's own scale — its own ~218-day season between 28°F freezes, the 337 acres it covers and 84 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Faywood's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Faywood's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Nov 9 and the ~218-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 84 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Faywood, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Faywood's boundary and the 337 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~218-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Faywood's own centroid, the Arizona/New Mexico MountainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Faywood 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 Faywood's 337 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Grant County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Grant 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 Grant County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Faywood's 337 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Faywood you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 337 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Faywood-wide figureread your own land →
More in New Mexico
Wider growing context
What grows across New MexicoFaywood sits outside our named growing regions, so New Mexico as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides