Hachita, New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Hachita, 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 Hachita 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 Hachita — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Hachita — the short answer
Hachita, New Mexico: USDA zone 8a, about 232 days between hard freezes, across 284 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~232
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 284 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 Hachita's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Hachita's 232-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Hachita
Each reading below is measured for Hachita itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHachita runs about 232 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
MeasuredHachita 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 Hachita is in
Hachita sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Hachita's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Grant County is mostly Arizona/New Mexico Mountains. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Hachita
Every plant below cleared Hachita's own zone 8a and its 232-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Hachita?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 24; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 24 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 11 — 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 Hachita
Survey cells within 31 miles of Hachita checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 522 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Hachita
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Hachita. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- WESTERN UNIVERSITY HATCHITAUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- HACHITA FOOD MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- NMDOT HACHITA PATROL YARD 41 48Underground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- OLD FINA STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- HACHITA SUPPLYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- 27S.15W.26.443Nitrate · 1.1 mi
- 27S.15W.26.434Nitrate · 1.1 mi
- 27S.15W.26.223Nitrate · 1.4 mi
- Christmas Tree MineMining · 4.3 mi
- Apache MineMining · 4.9 mi
- Luna MineMining · 5.3 mi
- Copper KingMining · 5.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Hachita'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 Hachita.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Hachita
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Hachita
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Hachita, Mining runs higher than the national average — 39 sites within ~10 miles of Hachita. 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.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Hachita
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 Hachita average
Your land is one point inside Hachita
Everything above resolves to Hachita as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 284 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 Hachita Average
Hachita Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Hachita
- ●One soil character for all of Hachita
- ●Frost dates read at Hachita's scale: Mar 24 to Nov 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Hachita's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Hachita
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Hachita, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Hachita averages can't show:
We read public map data around Hachita — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hachita average
How we know this about Hachita
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 Hachita’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 Hachita
When does frost risk typically end in Hachita?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Hachita typically lands around Mar 24, 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 14.
When is the first frost in Hachita?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Hachita typically arrives around Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 28, so the watching starts about Oct 12 — about 232 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Hachita?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Hachita sees about 232 frost-free days — roughly Mar 24 through Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 14 to Oct 28, about 197 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Hachita?
The federal record around Hachita runs heavier than most — 56 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (39), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Hachita?
From about Oct 12 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 11 (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 11. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Hachita's scale — its 8a band and its 232-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Hachita'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 Hachita’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Hachita's own scale — its own ~232-day season between 28°F freezes, the 284 acres it covers and 56 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Hachita's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Hachita's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 24 and Nov 11 and the ~232-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 56 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Hachita, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Hachita's boundary and the 284 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~232-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Hachita sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Hachita 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 Hachita's 284 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 Hachita's 284 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Hachita you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 284 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Hachita-wide figureread your own land →
More in New Mexico
Wider growing context
What grows across New MexicoHachita sits outside our named growing regions, so New Mexico as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides