Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, 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 Ranchos de Albuquerque 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 Ranchos de Albuquerque — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Los Ranchos de Albuquerque — the short answer
Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, New Mexico: USDA zone 7b, about 214 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~214
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 Los Ranchos de Albuquerque's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Los Ranchos de Albuquerque's 214-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque
Each reading below is measured for Los Ranchos de Albuquerque itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLos Ranchos de Albuquerque runs about 214 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 Ranchos de Albuquerque 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 Los Ranchos de Albuquerque is in
Los Ranchos de Albuquerque sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Los Ranchos de Albuquerque's own centroid rather than borrowed from Bernalillo County.
What Grows in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque
Every plant below cleared Los Ranchos de Albuquerque's own zone 7b and its 214-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 1 — 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 Los Ranchos de Albuquerque
Survey cells within 31 miles of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 450 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Los Ranchos de Albuquerque
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 11N.03E.20.400A ELGAGRNTNitrate · 800 ft
- 11N.03E.20.400C ELGAGRNTNitrate · 800 ft
- 11N.03E.20.400B ELGAGRNTNitrate · 800 ft
- BLACK SCOTT HUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- 11N.03E.20.334ANitrate · 2300 ft
- 11N.03E.20.334Nitrate · 2300 ft
- HERZSTEIN DAVEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- 11N.03E.20.143EL.GA.GRNTNitrate · 0.5 mi
- BROTHERS PLATING COSuperfund · 0.5 mi
- G AND T AUTO SERVICE INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- 11N.03E.28.113Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- HELEN JONES PROPERTY FORMER BODY SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Los Ranchos de Albuquerque'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 Ranchos de Albuquerque.
Total Sites
3,077
within ~10 miles of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
32 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque
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 Ranchos de Albuquerque average
Your land is one point inside Los Ranchos de Albuquerque
Everything above resolves to Los Ranchos de Albuquerque as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Ranchos de Albuquerque Average
Los Ranchos de Albuquerque Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Los Ranchos de Albuquerque
- ●One soil character for all of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque
- ●Frost dates read at Los Ranchos de Albuquerque's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Los Ranchos de Albuquerque's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Los Ranchos de Albuquerque averages can't show:
We read public map data around Los Ranchos de Albuquerque — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Los Ranchos de Albuquerque average
How we know this about Los Ranchos de Albuquerque
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 Ranchos de Albuquerque’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 Ranchos de Albuquerque
When does frost risk typically end in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
When is the first frost in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque typically arrives around Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 18, so the watching starts about Oct 2 — about 214 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Los Ranchos de Albuquerque sees about 214 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 18, about 179 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque?
The federal record around Los Ranchos de Albuquerque runs heavier than most — 3,077 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,298), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.2 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 Ranchos de Albuquerque?
From about Oct 2 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 1 (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 1. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Los Ranchos de Albuquerque's scale — its 7b band and its 214-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque'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 Ranchos de Albuquerque’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Los Ranchos de Albuquerque's own scale — its own ~214-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,849 acres it covers and 3,077 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Los Ranchos de Albuquerque's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Los Ranchos de Albuquerque's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 1 and the ~214-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 3,077 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, the closest Nitrate record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Los Ranchos de Albuquerque's boundary and the 2,849 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~214-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Los Ranchos de Albuquerque's own centroid, the Arizona/New Mexico PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Los Ranchos de Albuquerque 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 Ranchos de Albuquerque's 2,849 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Bernalillo County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Bernalillo 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 Bernalillo County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Los Ranchos de Albuquerque's 2,849 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,849 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.2 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 Ranchos de Albuquerque-wide figureread your own land →