Los Cerrillos, 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.
These conditions suit cabbage, pawpaw, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Los Cerrillos, 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 Los Cerrillos 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 Los Cerrillos — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Los Cerrillos — the short answer
Los Cerrillos, New Mexico: USDA zone 7a, about 203 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~203
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 7a is Los Cerrillos's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Los Cerrillos's 203-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Los Cerrillos
Each reading below is measured for Los Cerrillos itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLos Cerrillos runs about 203 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
MeasuredLos Cerrillos 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 Los Cerrillos is in
Los Cerrillos sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Los Cerrillos's own centroid rather than borrowed from Santa Fe County.
What Grows in Los Cerrillos
Every plant below cleared Los Cerrillos's own zone 7a and its 203-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Los Cerrillos?
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 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 11 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 31 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Los Cerrillos
Survey cells within 31 miles of Los Cerrillos checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 452 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Los Cerrillos
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Los Cerrillos. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- TAPPEROS BAR AUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Mina Del TerraMining · 1.7 mi
- 14N.08E.08.12411Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- Mina Del TiroMining · 2.3 mi
- Franklin MineMining · 2.7 mi
- Cash EntryMining · 2.8 mi
- Cash Entry MineMining · 2.8 mi
- Grand Central MineMining · 2.8 mi
- Central MineMining · 2.9 mi
- Mt. Chalchihuitl MineMining · 3.2 mi
- Pennsylvania MineMining · 4.6 mi
- Black Hornet ProspectMining · 4.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Los Cerrillos'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 Los Cerrillos.
Total Sites
72
within ~10 miles of Los Cerrillos
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Los Cerrillos
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Los Cerrillos
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Los Cerrillos, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Los Cerrillos — Mining (33 sites) and Nitrate (28 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 Los Cerrillos
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 Los Cerrillos average
Your land is one point inside Los Cerrillos
Everything above resolves to Los Cerrillos as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Los Cerrillos Average
Los Cerrillos Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Los Cerrillos
- ●One soil character for all of Los Cerrillos
- ●Frost dates read at Los Cerrillos's scale: Apr 11 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Los Cerrillos's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Los Cerrillos
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Los Cerrillos, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Los Cerrillos averages can't show:
We read public map data around Los Cerrillos — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Los Cerrillos average
How we know this about Los Cerrillos
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 Los Cerrillos’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 Los Cerrillos
When does frost risk typically end in Los Cerrillos?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Los Cerrillos typically lands around Apr 11, 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 May 2.
When is the first frost in Los Cerrillos?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Los Cerrillos typically arrives around Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 17, so the watching starts about Oct 1 — about 203 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Los Cerrillos?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Los Cerrillos sees about 203 frost-free days — roughly Apr 11 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 2 to Oct 17, about 168 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Los Cerrillos?
The federal record around Los Cerrillos runs heavier than most — 72 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (33), 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 Los Cerrillos?
From about Oct 1 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 31 (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 31. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Los Cerrillos's scale — its 7a band and its 203-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Los Cerrillos'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 Los Cerrillos’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Los Cerrillos's own scale — its own ~203-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,154 acres it covers and 72 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Los Cerrillos's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Los Cerrillos's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 11 and Oct 31 and the ~203-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 72 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Los Cerrillos, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Los Cerrillos's boundary and the 2,154 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~203-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Los Cerrillos's own centroid, the Arizona/New Mexico PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Los Cerrillos 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 Los Cerrillos's 2,154 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Santa Fe County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Santa Fe 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 Santa Fe County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Los Cerrillos's 2,154 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Los Cerrillos you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,154 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 Los Cerrillos-wide figureread your own land →