Glen Acres, New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — 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, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Glen Acres, 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 Glen Acres 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 Glen Acres — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Glen Acres — the short answer
Glen Acres, New Mexico: USDA zone 8a, about 222 days between hard freezes, across 632 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~222
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 632 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 Glen Acres's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Glen Acres's 222-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Glen Acres
Each reading below is measured for Glen Acres itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredGlen Acres runs about 222 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
MeasuredGlen Acres 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 Glen Acres is in
Glen Acres sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Glen Acres's own centroid rather than borrowed from Hidalgo County.
What Grows in Glen Acres
Every plant below cleared Glen Acres's own zone 8a and its 222-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Glen Acres?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. 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 8 — 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 Glen Acres
Survey cells within 31 miles of Glen Acres checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 494 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Glen Acres
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Glen Acres. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 22S.18W.29.210Nitrate · 2600 ft
- 22S.18W.28.324Nitrate · 1.4 mi
- GENESIS SERVICE TRANSPORTATION AND TOWINGBrownfields · 1.5 mi
- HOLIDAY TEXACO AUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- LOVES COUNTRY STORE 276Underground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- TOWER TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- GEORGE B S WESTSIDEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- LORDSBURG MUNICICPAL SCHOOLSBrownfields · 1.8 mi
- EASTSIDE CHEVRONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- BORDER COWBOY TRUCK STOPSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- BORDER COWBOY TRUCK STOPS 2Underground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- DEMOLISHED TEXACO STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Glen Acres'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 Glen Acres.
Total Sites
112
within ~10 miles of Glen Acres
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Glen Acres
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Glen Acres
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Glen Acres, Mining runs higher than the national average — 64 sites within ~10 miles of Glen Acres. 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.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Glen Acres
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 Glen Acres average
Your land is one point inside Glen Acres
Everything above resolves to Glen Acres as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 632 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 Glen Acres Average
Glen Acres Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Glen Acres
- ●One soil character for all of Glen Acres
- ●Frost dates read at Glen Acres's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Glen Acres's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Glen Acres
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Glen Acres, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Glen Acres averages can't show:
We read public map data around Glen Acres — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Glen Acres average
How we know this about Glen Acres
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 Glen Acres’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 Glen Acres
When does frost risk typically end in Glen Acres?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Glen Acres 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.
When is the first frost in Glen Acres?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Glen Acres typically arrives around Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 25, so the watching starts about Oct 9 — about 222 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Glen Acres?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Glen Acres sees about 222 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 25, about 187 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Glen Acres?
The federal record around Glen Acres runs heavier than most — 112 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (64), the nearest Nitrate 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 Glen Acres?
From about Oct 9 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 8 (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 8. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Glen Acres's scale — its 8a band and its 222-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Glen Acres'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 Glen Acres’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Glen Acres's own scale — its own ~222-day season between 28°F freezes, the 632 acres it covers and 112 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Glen Acres's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Glen Acres's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Nov 8 and the ~222-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 112 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Glen Acres, the closest Nitrate record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Glen Acres's boundary and the 632 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~222-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Glen Acres's own centroid, the Chihuahuan DesertsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Glen Acres 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 Glen Acres's 632 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Hidalgo County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Hidalgo 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 Hidalgo County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Glen Acres's 632 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Glen Acres you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 632 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate 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 Glen Acres-wide figureread your own land →
More in New Mexico
Wider growing context
What grows across New MexicoGlen Acres sits outside our named growing regions, so New Mexico as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides