South Valley, 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.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in South Valley, 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 South Valley 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 South Valley — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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South Valley — the short answer
South Valley, New Mexico: USDA zone 7b, about 217 days between hard freezes, across 19K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- 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
- 19K 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 South Valley's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against South Valley's 217-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in South Valley
Each reading below is measured for South Valley itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSouth Valley 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
MeasuredSouth Valley 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 South Valley is in
South Valley sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at South Valley's own centroid rather than borrowed from Bernalillo County.
What Grows in South Valley
Every plant below cleared South Valley's own zone 7b and its 217-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in South Valley?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. 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. 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 South Valley
Survey cells within 31 miles of South Valley checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 458 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near South Valley
Closest first, within ~10 miles of South Valley. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 09N.02E.13.431Nitrate · 2600 ft
- BASS SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- 09N.02E.13443Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- QUALITY LUBEBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- TOWN OF ATRISCO GRANT(350035106413401)Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- ALLSUPS - NO136Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- D AND M CONOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- 09N.02E.TOWN OF ATRISCO GRANTNitrate · 0.8 mi
- ADOBE ACRES LAUNDRYBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- 09N.03E.18.343Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- 09N.02E.11.442Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- 09N.02E.24.241Nitrate · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from South Valley'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 South Valley.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of South Valley
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of South Valley
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in South Valley
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 South Valley average
Your land is one point inside South Valley
Everything above resolves to South Valley as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 19K 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 South Valley Average
South Valley Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across South Valley
- ●One soil character for all of South Valley
- ●Frost dates read at South Valley's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not South Valley's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in South Valley
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in South Valley, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that South Valley averages can't show:
We read public map data around South Valley — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the South Valley average
How we know this about South Valley
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 South Valley’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 South Valley
When does frost risk typically end in South Valley?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in South Valley 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 South Valley?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in South Valley 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 South Valley?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, South Valley 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 South Valley?
The federal record around South Valley runs heavier than most — 2,381 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,001), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.5 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 South Valley?
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 South Valley's scale — its 7b band and its 217-day season. Your yard writes its own version of South Valley'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 South Valley’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at South Valley's own scale — its own ~217-day season between 28°F freezes, the 18,562 acres it covers and 2,381 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- South Valley's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- South Valley's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Nov 3 and the ~217-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,381 documented contamination sites on the federal record near South Valley, the closest Nitrate record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- South Valley's boundary and the 18,562 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~217-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at South Valley's own centroid, the Arizona/New Mexico PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around South Valley 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 South Valley's 18,562 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Bernalillo County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Bernalillo 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 Bernalillo County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among South Valley's 18,562 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of South Valley you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 18,562 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.5 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 South Valley-wide figureread your own land →