Oasis, New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
These conditions suit cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Oasis, 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 Oasis 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 Oasis — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Oasis — the short answer
Oasis, New Mexico: USDA zone 8a, about 246 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~246
- 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 8a is Oasis's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Oasis's 246-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Oasis
Each reading below is measured for Oasis itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredOasis runs about 246 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
MeasuredOasis 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 Oasis is in
Oasis sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Oasis's own centroid rather than borrowed from Sierra County.
What Grows in Oasis
Every plant below cleared Oasis's own zone 8a and its 246-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Oasis?
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 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 12 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 13 — 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 Oasis
Survey cells within 31 miles of Oasis checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 570 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Oasis
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Oasis. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CABALLO LAKE STATE PARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- LAKEVIEW RV PARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- CABALLO LAKE TRADING POSTUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- 16S.05W.22.000Nitrate · 2.3 mi
- 16S.05W.25.211ANitrate · 2.4 mi
- 16S.05W.22.300Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- 16S.05W.26.143Nitrate · 2.8 mi
- 15S.05W.27.443BNitrate · 3.1 mi
- 15S.05W.27.443A DUPNitrate · 3.1 mi
- 15S.05W.27.443ANitrate · 3.1 mi
- 15S.05W.27.440Nitrate · 3.2 mi
- 15S.05W.27.413Nitrate · 3.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Oasis'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 Oasis.
Total Sites
109
within ~10 miles of Oasis
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Oasis
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Oasis
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Oasis, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Oasis — Mining (22 sites) and Nitrate (78 sites). 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.
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 Oasis
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 Oasis average
Your land is one point inside Oasis
Everything above resolves to Oasis 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 Oasis Average
Oasis Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Oasis
- ●One soil character for all of Oasis
- ●Frost dates read at Oasis's scale: Mar 12 to Nov 13
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Oasis's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Oasis
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Oasis, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Oasis averages can't show:
We read public map data around Oasis — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Oasis average
How we know this about Oasis
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 Oasis’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 Oasis
When does frost risk typically end in Oasis?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Oasis typically lands around Mar 12, 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 2.
When is the first frost in Oasis?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Oasis typically arrives around Nov 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 30, so the watching starts about Oct 14 — about 246 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Oasis?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Oasis sees about 246 frost-free days — roughly Mar 12 through Nov 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 2 to Oct 30, about 211 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Oasis?
The federal record around Oasis is a meaningful one — 109 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (78), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Oasis?
From about Oct 14 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 13 (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 13. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Oasis's scale — its 8a band and its 246-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Oasis'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 Oasis’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Oasis's own scale — its own ~246-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,338 acres it covers and 109 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Oasis's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Oasis's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 12 and Nov 13 and the ~246-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 109 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Oasis, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Oasis's boundary and the 1,338 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~246-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Oasis's own centroid, the Chihuahuan DesertsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Oasis 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 Oasis's 1,338 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Sierra County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Sierra 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 Sierra County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Oasis's 1,338 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Oasis you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,338 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 Oasis-wide figureread your own land →
More in New Mexico
Wider growing context
What grows across New MexicoOasis sits outside our named growing regions, so New Mexico as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides