Silver City, New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Silver City, 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 Silver City 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 Silver City — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Silver City — the short answer
Silver City, New Mexico: USDA zone 7b, about 211 days between hard freezes, across 6K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 10
- 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
- ~211
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 6K 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 Silver City's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Silver City's 211-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Silver City
Each reading below is measured for Silver City itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSilver City runs about 211 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
MeasuredSilver City 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 Silver City is in
Silver City sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Silver City'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 Silver City
Every plant below cleared Silver City's own zone 7b and its 211-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Silver City?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 10 (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 Silver City
Survey cells within 31 miles of Silver City checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 517 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Silver City
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Silver City. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- UNITED PARCEL SERVICE - SILVER CITYBrownfields · 1100 ft
- BROWNS SELF SERVEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- SPANGLER MOTORSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- BELL GASUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- VICTORY SELF SERVICE MINI MART AKA SILVER HEIGHTSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- CVS PHARMACY #10449Brownfields · 1600 ft
- MELENDREZ DANIEL MIKE AND LIONILAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- TATSCH CONSTRUCTION INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- HUDSON STREET 66Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- JOES SILVER CREST TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- SNAPPY MART 219Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- FUEL CENTER PLUS 1Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Silver City'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 Silver City.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Silver City
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Silver City
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Silver City, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Silver City — Mining (108 sites) and Superfund (6 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 Silver City
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 Silver City average
Your land is one point inside Silver City
Everything above resolves to Silver City as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 6K 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 Silver City Average
Silver City Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Silver City
- ●One soil character for all of Silver City
- ●Frost dates read at Silver City's scale: Apr 10 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Silver City's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Silver City
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Silver City, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Silver City averages can't show:
We read public map data around Silver City — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Silver City average
How we know this about Silver City
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 Silver City’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 Silver City
When does frost risk typically end in Silver City?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Silver City typically lands around Apr 10, 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 1.
When is the first frost in Silver City?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Silver City 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 211 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Silver City?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Silver City sees about 211 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Oct 24, about 176 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Silver City?
The federal record around Silver City runs heavier than most — 302 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (108), the nearest Brownfields 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 Silver City?
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 Silver City's scale — its 7b band and its 211-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Silver City'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 Silver City’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Silver City's own scale — its own ~211-day season between 28°F freezes, the 6,476 acres it covers and 302 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Silver City's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Silver City's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 10 and Nov 7 and the ~211-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 302 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Silver City, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Silver City's boundary and the 6,476 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~211-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Silver City sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Silver City 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 Silver City's 6,476 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 Silver City's 6,476 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Silver City you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 6,476 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Silver City-wide figureread your own land →
More in New Mexico
Wider growing context
What grows across New MexicoSilver City sits outside our named growing regions, so New Mexico as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides