Manzano Springs, New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, pawpaw, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Manzano Springs, 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 Manzano Springs 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 Manzano Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Manzano Springs — the short answer
Manzano Springs, New Mexico: USDA zone 7a, about 180 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~180
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 Manzano Springs's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Manzano Springs's 180-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Manzano Springs
Each reading below is measured for Manzano Springs itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredManzano Springs runs about 180 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredManzano Springs 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 Manzano Springs is in
Manzano Springs sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Temperate Sierras. That is read at Manzano Springs's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Torrance County is mostly Southwestern Tablelands. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Manzano Springs
Every plant below cleared Manzano Springs's own zone 7a and its 180-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Manzano Springs?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 23 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 20 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Even past midsummer there is room for a true fall garden here, and garlic planted near the close carries the momentum into next year.
Documented around Manzano Springs
Survey cells within 31 miles of Manzano Springs checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 474 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Manzano Springs
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Manzano Springs. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 09N.06E.26.244Nitrate · 2.0 mi
- 09N.06E.26.333Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- 09N.06E.34.242ANitrate · 2.6 mi
- 09N.06E.34.242Nitrate · 2.7 mi
- JOHN BARELA AND SONS MOUNTAIN SIDE MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- 09N.06E.23.343Nitrate · 2.8 mi
- 08N.06E.11.222Nitrate · 2.8 mi
- 08N.07E.16.141Nitrate · 2.8 mi
- 09N.06E.34.4321 WELL 3Nitrate · 3.0 mi
- 09N.06E.34.431Nitrate · 3.1 mi
- 09N.06E.22.234Nitrate · 3.4 mi
- 08N.06E.02.331Nitrate · 3.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Manzano Springs'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 Manzano Springs.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Manzano Springs
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Manzano Springs
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Manzano Springs, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 184 sites within ~10 miles of Manzano Springs. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Manzano Springs
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 Manzano Springs average
Your land is one point inside Manzano Springs
Everything above resolves to Manzano Springs as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Manzano Springs Average
Manzano Springs Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Manzano Springs
- ●One soil character for all of Manzano Springs
- ●Frost dates read at Manzano Springs's scale: Apr 23 to Oct 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Manzano Springs's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Manzano Springs
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Manzano Springs, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Manzano Springs averages can't show:
We read public map data around Manzano Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Manzano Springs average
How we know this about Manzano Springs
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 Manzano Springs’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 Manzano Springs
When does frost risk typically end in Manzano Springs?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Manzano Springs typically lands around Apr 23, 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 14.
When is the first frost in Manzano Springs?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Manzano Springs typically arrives around Oct 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 6, so the watching starts about Sep 20 — about 180 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Manzano Springs?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Manzano Springs sees about 180 frost-free days — roughly Apr 23 through Oct 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 14 to Oct 6, about 145 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Manzano Springs?
The federal record around Manzano Springs is a meaningful one — 217 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (184), the nearest Nitrate record about 2.0 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Manzano Springs?
From about Sep 20 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 20 (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 20. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Manzano Springs's scale — its 7a band and its 180-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Manzano Springs'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 Manzano Springs’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Manzano Springs's own scale — its own ~180-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,459 acres it covers and 217 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Manzano Springs's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Manzano Springs's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 23 and Oct 20 and the ~180-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 217 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Manzano Springs, the closest Nitrate record about 2.0 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Manzano Springs's boundary and the 1,459 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~180-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Manzano Springs sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Manzano Springs 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 Manzano Springs's 1,459 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Torrance County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Torrance 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 Torrance County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Manzano Springs's 1,459 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Manzano Springs you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,459 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 2.0 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 Manzano Springs-wide figureread your own land →
More in New Mexico
Wider growing context
What grows across New MexicoManzano Springs sits outside our named growing regions, so New Mexico as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides