Pinos Altos, New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Pinos Altos, 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 Pinos Altos 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 Pinos Altos — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Pinos Altos — the short answer
Pinos Altos, New Mexico: USDA zone 7b, about 203 days between hard freezes, across 484 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~203
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 484 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 Pinos Altos's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pinos Altos's 203-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Pinos Altos
Each reading below is measured for Pinos Altos itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPinos Altos 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
MeasuredPinos Altos 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 Pinos Altos is in
Pinos Altos sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Temperate Sierras. That is read at Pinos Altos's own centroid rather than borrowed from Grant County.
What Grows in Pinos Altos
Every plant below cleared Pinos Altos's own zone 7b and its 203-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Pinos Altos?
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 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 18 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 7 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Pinos Altos
Survey cells within 31 miles of Pinos Altos checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 519 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Pinos Altos
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Pinos Altos. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 17S.13W.06.222Nitrate · 1000 ft
- Calumet MineMining · 1400 ft
- WILDERNESS RANGER DISTRICTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- Gopher MineMining · 2400 ft
- Golden Giant MineMining · 0.5 mi
- Alaska MineMining · 0.5 mi
- 17S.13W.06.143Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- Portland MineMining · 0.7 mi
- Little Key MineMining · 0.7 mi
- Mogul MineMining · 0.7 mi
- Mammoth MineMining · 0.8 mi
- Hard Luck ProspectMining · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pinos Altos'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 Pinos Altos.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Pinos Altos
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Pinos Altos
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Pinos Altos, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Pinos Altos — Mining (149 sites) and Superfund (5 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.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Pinos Altos
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 Pinos Altos average
Your land is one point inside Pinos Altos
Everything above resolves to Pinos Altos as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 484 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 Pinos Altos Average
Pinos Altos Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Pinos Altos
- ●One soil character for all of Pinos Altos
- ●Frost dates read at Pinos Altos's scale: Apr 18 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pinos Altos's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Pinos Altos
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pinos Altos, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pinos Altos averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pinos Altos — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pinos Altos average
How we know this about Pinos Altos
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 Pinos Altos’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 Pinos Altos
When does frost risk typically end in Pinos Altos?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pinos Altos typically lands around Apr 18, 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 9.
When is the first frost in Pinos Altos?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Pinos Altos typically arrives around Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 24, so the watching starts about Oct 8 — about 203 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Pinos Altos?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pinos Altos sees about 203 frost-free days — roughly Apr 18 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 9 to Oct 24, about 168 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Pinos Altos?
The federal record around Pinos Altos runs heavier than most — 309 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (149), 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 Pinos Altos?
From about Oct 8 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 7 (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 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Pinos Altos's scale — its 7b band and its 203-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pinos Altos'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 Pinos Altos’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Pinos Altos's own scale — its own ~203-day season between 28°F freezes, the 484 acres it covers and 309 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pinos Altos's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pinos Altos's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 18 and Nov 7 and the ~203-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 309 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Pinos Altos, the closest Nitrate record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Pinos Altos's boundary and the 484 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~203-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Pinos Altos's own centroid, the Arizona/New Mexico MountainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Pinos Altos 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 Pinos Altos's 484 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Grant County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Grant 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 Grant County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Pinos Altos's 484 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Pinos Altos you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 484 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 Pinos Altos-wide figureread your own land →
More in New Mexico
Wider growing context
What grows across New MexicoPinos Altos sits outside our named growing regions, so New Mexico as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides