Picacho Hills, New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Growers here do well with cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Picacho Hills, 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 Picacho Hills 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 Picacho Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Picacho Hills — the short answer
Picacho Hills, New Mexico: USDA zone 8b, about 262 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~262
- 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 8b is Picacho Hills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Picacho Hills's 262-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Picacho Hills
Each reading below is measured for Picacho Hills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPicacho Hills runs about 262 days between hard freezes — close to year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredPicacho Hills sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b.
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 Picacho Hills is in
Picacho Hills sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Picacho Hills's own centroid rather than borrowed from Doña Ana County.
What Grows in Picacho Hills
Every plant below cleared Picacho Hills's own zone 8b and its 262-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Picacho Hills?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 2; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 19 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the calendar nearly circles: cool-season crops take the winter shift, and the next window is always close.
Documented around Picacho Hills
Survey cells within 31 miles of Picacho Hills checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 601 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Picacho Hills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Picacho Hills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PICACHO HILLS COUNTRY CLUBBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- ACTION AUTO PARTSBrownfields · 1.7 mi
- BIG CHIEF STONEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- KOA KAMPGROUNDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- WILD WEST EXPRESS, INC.Brownfields · 1.9 mi
- DOVE WHOLESALEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- FUEL FARMUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- NM1310 FAIRACRES COUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- LOVELACE PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- FAIRACRES POST OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- PIC QUIK NO 1135Underground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- MBOWN-25 - 23S.01E.16.424 (USBR-12)Nitrate · 2.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Picacho Hills'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 Picacho Hills.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Picacho Hills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Picacho Hills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Picacho Hills, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 15 sites within ~10 miles of Picacho Hills. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Picacho Hills
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 Picacho Hills average
Your land is one point inside Picacho Hills
Everything above resolves to Picacho Hills 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 Picacho Hills Average
Picacho Hills Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Picacho Hills
- ●One soil character for all of Picacho Hills
- ●Frost dates read at Picacho Hills's scale: Mar 2 to Nov 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Picacho Hills's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Picacho Hills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Picacho Hills, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Picacho Hills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Picacho Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Picacho Hills average
How we know this about Picacho Hills
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 Picacho Hills’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 Picacho Hills
When does frost risk typically end in Picacho Hills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Picacho Hills typically lands around Mar 2, 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 Mar 23.
When is the first frost in Picacho Hills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Picacho Hills typically arrives around Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 5, so the watching starts about Oct 20 — about 262 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Picacho Hills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Picacho Hills sees about 262 frost-free days — roughly Mar 2 through Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 23 to Nov 5, about 227 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Picacho Hills?
The federal record around Picacho Hills is a meaningful one — 525 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (295), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.5 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 Picacho Hills?
From about Oct 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 Nov 19 (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 19. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Picacho Hills's scale — its 8b band and its 262-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Picacho Hills'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 Picacho Hills’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Picacho Hills's own scale — its own ~262-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,074 acres it covers and 525 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Picacho Hills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Picacho Hills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 2 and Nov 19 and the ~262-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 525 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Picacho Hills, the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Picacho Hills's boundary and the 2,074 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~262-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Picacho Hills's own centroid, the Chihuahuan DesertsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Picacho Hills 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 Picacho Hills's 2,074 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Doña Ana County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Doña Ana 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 Doña Ana County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Picacho Hills's 2,074 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Picacho Hills you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,074 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Picacho Hills-wide figureread your own land →
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