Placitas, New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
On paper, cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Placitas, 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 Placitas 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 Placitas — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Placitas — the short answer
Placitas, New Mexico: USDA zone 8a, about 237 days between hard freezes, across 85 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~237
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 85 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 Placitas's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Placitas's 237-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Placitas
Each reading below is measured for Placitas itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPlacitas runs about 237 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
MeasuredPlacitas 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 Placitas is in
Placitas sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Placitas's own centroid rather than borrowed from Doña Ana County.
What Grows in Placitas
Every plant below cleared Placitas's own zone 8a and its 237-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Placitas?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 19; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 19 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 11 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Placitas
Survey cells within 31 miles of Placitas checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 581 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Placitas
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Placitas. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 19S.03W.08.414 DUPNitrate · 1200 ft
- 19S.03W.08.423 HD-1Nitrate · 1800 ft
- HATCH CONOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- HATCH JUNCTION SITE ORSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARY AND WATER COMMISSION AUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- HATCH EXXONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- HENRYS TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- BLM-BLUE CANYON ALLOTMENTSuperfund · 0.8 mi
- HALSELLS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- HATCH AUTO TIREBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- WEBB ANNUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- 19S.03W.05.434Nitrate · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Placitas'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 Placitas.
Total Sites
135
within ~10 miles of Placitas
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Placitas
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Placitas
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Placitas, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 102 sites within ~10 miles of Placitas. 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 Placitas
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 Placitas average
Your land is one point inside Placitas
Everything above resolves to Placitas as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 85 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 Placitas Average
Placitas Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Placitas
- ●One soil character for all of Placitas
- ●Frost dates read at Placitas's scale: Mar 19 to Nov 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Placitas's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Placitas
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Placitas, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Placitas averages can't show:
We read public map data around Placitas — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Placitas average
How we know this about Placitas
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 Placitas’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 Placitas
When does frost risk typically end in Placitas?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Placitas typically lands around Mar 19, 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 9.
When is the first frost in Placitas?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Placitas typically arrives around Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 28, so the watching starts about Oct 12 — about 237 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Placitas?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Placitas sees about 237 frost-free days — roughly Mar 19 through Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 9 to Oct 28, about 202 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Placitas?
The federal record around Placitas is a meaningful one — 135 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (102), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.2 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 Placitas?
From about Oct 12 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 11 (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 11. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Placitas's scale — its 8a band and its 237-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Placitas'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 Placitas’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Placitas's own scale — its own ~237-day season between 28°F freezes, the 85 acres it covers and 135 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Placitas's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Placitas's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 19 and Nov 11 and the ~237-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 135 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Placitas, the closest Nitrate record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Placitas's boundary and the 85 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~237-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Placitas's own centroid, the Chihuahuan DesertsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Placitas 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 Placitas's 85 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 Placitas's 85 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Placitas you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 85 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 Placitas-wide figureread your own land →
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