Santa Clara, New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
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 Santa Clara, 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 Santa Clara 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 Santa Clara — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Santa Clara — the short answer
Santa Clara, New Mexico: USDA zone 7b, about 208 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~208
- 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 7b is Santa Clara's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Santa Clara's 208-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Santa Clara
Each reading below is measured for Santa Clara itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSanta Clara runs about 208 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
MeasuredSanta Clara 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 Santa Clara is in
Santa Clara sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Santa Clara's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Grant County is mostly Arizona/New Mexico Mountains. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Santa Clara
Every plant below cleared Santa Clara's own zone 7b and its 208-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Santa Clara?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 15; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 12 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 6 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Santa Clara
Survey cells within 31 miles of Santa Clara checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 524 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Santa Clara
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Santa Clara. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Peerless MineMining · 1100 ft
- FREDS HOME CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- GRANT COUNTY AUTO SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- Manhattan and Pleasant View MinesMining · 2200 ft
- BELL GAS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- Saint Helena GroupMining · 2400 ft
- St. Helena MineMining · 0.6 mi
- Betty Jo MineMining · 0.7 mi
- Betty-JoMining · 0.7 mi
- Silver KingMining · 0.8 mi
- Texas MineMining · 0.8 mi
- 18S.13W.02.32142Nitrate · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Santa Clara'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 Santa Clara.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Santa Clara
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Santa Clara
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Santa Clara, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Santa Clara — Mining (170 sites) and Superfund (5 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Santa Clara
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 Santa Clara average
Your land is one point inside Santa Clara
Everything above resolves to Santa Clara 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 Santa Clara Average
Santa Clara Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Santa Clara
- ●One soil character for all of Santa Clara
- ●Frost dates read at Santa Clara's scale: Apr 12 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Santa Clara's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Santa Clara
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Santa Clara, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Santa Clara averages can't show:
We read public map data around Santa Clara — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Santa Clara average
How we know this about Santa Clara
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 Santa Clara’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 Santa Clara
When does frost risk typically end in Santa Clara?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Santa Clara typically lands around Apr 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 May 3.
When is the first frost in Santa Clara?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Santa Clara typically arrives around Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 23, so the watching starts about Oct 7 — about 208 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Santa Clara?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Santa Clara sees about 208 frost-free days — roughly Apr 12 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 3 to Oct 23, about 173 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Santa Clara?
The federal record around Santa Clara runs heavier than most — 352 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (170), the nearest Mining 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 Santa Clara?
From about Oct 7 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 6 (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 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Santa Clara's scale — its 7b band and its 208-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Santa Clara'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 Santa Clara’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Santa Clara's own scale — its own ~208-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,274 acres it covers and 352 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Santa Clara's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Santa Clara's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 12 and Nov 6 and the ~208-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 352 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Santa Clara, the closest Mining record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Santa Clara's boundary and the 1,274 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~208-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Santa Clara sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Santa Clara 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 Santa Clara's 1,274 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 Santa Clara's 1,274 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Santa Clara you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,274 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Mining 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 Santa Clara-wide figureread your own land →
More in New Mexico
Wider growing context
What grows across New MexicoSanta Clara sits outside our named growing regions, so New Mexico as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides