Tularosa, New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
These conditions suit cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Tularosa, 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 Tularosa 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 Tularosa — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Tularosa — the short answer
Tularosa, New Mexico: USDA zone 8a, about 239 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~239
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 Tularosa's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Tularosa's 239-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Tularosa
Each reading below is measured for Tularosa itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredTularosa runs about 239 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
MeasuredTularosa 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 Tularosa is in
Tularosa sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Tularosa's own centroid rather than borrowed from Otero County.
What Grows in Tularosa
Every plant below cleared Tularosa's own zone 8a and its 239-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Tularosa?
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 Feb 18; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 18 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 12 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Tularosa
Survey cells within 31 miles of Tularosa checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 592 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Tularosa
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Tularosa. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- GIANT 334Underground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- ROLLA BUCKUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- BELL AUTOMOTIVEUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- FRANKS GONZALES EXXONUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- TULAROSA MOUNMENTSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- TUCKERS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- TULAROSA CONOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- TULAROSA POST OFFICEBrownfields · 1700 ft
- ELITE REPEATUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- ABANDONED TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- WILD WESTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- C AND C DR INN 190Underground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Tularosa'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 Tularosa.
Total Sites
92
within ~10 miles of Tularosa
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Tularosa
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Tularosa
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Tularosa, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 58 sites within ~10 miles of Tularosa. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Tularosa
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 Tularosa average
Your land is one point inside Tularosa
Everything above resolves to Tularosa as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Tularosa Average
Tularosa Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Tularosa
- ●One soil character for all of Tularosa
- ●Frost dates read at Tularosa's scale: Mar 18 to Nov 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Tularosa's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Tularosa
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Tularosa, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Tularosa averages can't show:
We read public map data around Tularosa — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Tularosa average
How we know this about Tularosa
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 Tularosa’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 Tularosa
When does frost risk typically end in Tularosa?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Tularosa typically lands around Mar 18, 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 8.
When is the first frost in Tularosa?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Tularosa typically arrives around Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 29, so the watching starts about Oct 13 — about 239 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Tularosa?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Tularosa sees about 239 frost-free days — roughly Mar 18 through Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 8 to Oct 29, about 204 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Tularosa?
The federal record around Tularosa shows 92 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (58), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Tularosa?
From about Oct 13 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 12 (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 12. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Tularosa's scale — its 8a band and its 239-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Tularosa'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 Tularosa’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Tularosa's own scale — its own ~239-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,804 acres it covers and 92 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Tularosa's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Tularosa's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 18 and Nov 12 and the ~239-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 92 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Tularosa, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Tularosa's boundary and the 1,804 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~239-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Tularosa's own centroid, the Chihuahuan DesertsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Tularosa 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 Tularosa's 1,804 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Otero County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Otero 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 Otero County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Tularosa's 1,804 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Tularosa you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,804 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Tularosa-wide figureread your own land →
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