Polvadera, New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Polvadera, 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 Polvadera 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 Polvadera — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Polvadera — the short answer
Polvadera, New Mexico: USDA zone 7a, about 217 days between hard freezes, across 620 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~217
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 620 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 Polvadera's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Polvadera's 217-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Polvadera
Each reading below is measured for Polvadera itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPolvadera runs about 217 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
MeasuredPolvadera 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 Polvadera is in
Polvadera sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Polvadera's own centroid rather than borrowed from Socorro County.
What Grows in Polvadera
Every plant below cleared Polvadera's own zone 7a and its 217-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Polvadera?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 31 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 3 — 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 Polvadera
Survey cells within 31 miles of Polvadera checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 499 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Polvadera
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Polvadera. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 01S.01W.23.300Nitrate · 1600 ft
- 01S.01W.26.131Nitrate · 1800 ft
- 03010122442ANitrate · 2200 ft
- AMADOR COMPLETE RECYCLING, INC.Brownfields · 2200 ft
- 01S.01W.23.431Nitrate · 2600 ft
- 01S.01W.26.200BNitrate · 0.5 mi
- 01S.01W.26.200Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- 01S.01W.26.200CNitrate · 0.5 mi
- LATASA CONOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- 01S.01W.27.400Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- 01S.01W.25.100Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- 01S.01W.26.400Nitrate · 1.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Polvadera'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 Polvadera.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Polvadera
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Polvadera
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Polvadera, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Polvadera — Superfund (6 sites) and Nitrate (124 sites). 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.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Polvadera
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 Polvadera average
Your land is one point inside Polvadera
Everything above resolves to Polvadera as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 620 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 Polvadera Average
Polvadera Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Polvadera
- ●One soil character for all of Polvadera
- ●Frost dates read at Polvadera's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Polvadera's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Polvadera
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Polvadera, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Polvadera averages can't show:
We read public map data around Polvadera — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Polvadera average
How we know this about Polvadera
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 Polvadera’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 Polvadera
When does frost risk typically end in Polvadera?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Polvadera typically lands around Mar 31, 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 21.
When is the first frost in Polvadera?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Polvadera typically arrives around Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 20, so the watching starts about Oct 4 — about 217 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Polvadera?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Polvadera sees about 217 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 20, about 182 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Polvadera?
The federal record around Polvadera is a meaningful one — 187 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (124), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.3 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 Polvadera?
From about Oct 4 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 3 (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 3. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Polvadera's scale — its 7a band and its 217-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Polvadera'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 Polvadera’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Polvadera's own scale — its own ~217-day season between 28°F freezes, the 620 acres it covers and 187 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Polvadera's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Polvadera's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Nov 3 and the ~217-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 187 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Polvadera, the closest Nitrate record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Polvadera's boundary and the 620 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~217-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Polvadera's own centroid, the Chihuahuan DesertsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Polvadera 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 Polvadera's 620 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Socorro County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Socorro 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 Socorro County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Polvadera's 620 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Polvadera you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 620 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.3 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 Polvadera-wide figureread your own land →
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