El Paso, Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, fig, 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 El Paso, 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 El Paso 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 El Paso — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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El Paso — the short answer
El Paso, Texas: USDA zone 8b, about 283 days between hard freezes, across 166K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~283
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 166K 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 8b is El Paso's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against El Paso's 283-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in El Paso
Each reading below is measured for El Paso itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredEl Paso runs about 283 days between hard freezes — close to year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredEl Paso sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b.
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 El Paso is in
El Paso sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at El Paso's own centroid rather than borrowed from El Paso County.
What Grows in El Paso
Every plant below cleared El Paso's own zone 8b and its 283-day season. Each card opens that plant's Texas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in El Paso?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 22; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 19 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 29 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. In a climate this gentle, “too late” hardly applies — the question becomes which crops prefer the cooler months ahead.
Documented around El Paso
Survey cells within 31 miles of El Paso checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 632 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near El Paso
Closest first, within ~10 miles of El Paso. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ACE DRIVE INUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- TRI STATE ELECTRICUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- STATION 66Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- FOOD MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- PHILLIPS 66 022206Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- A & R AUTO REPAIRSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- 7 ELEVEN 57641Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- HERCULES CAR WASHUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- 7 ELEVEN 57629Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- DIAMOND SHAMROCK 1268Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- JL-49-13-2XXNitrate · 0.8 mi
- GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBERUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from El Paso'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 El Paso.
Total Sites
1,451
within ~10 miles of El Paso
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
4 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of El Paso
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of El Paso
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around El Paso, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 940 sites within ~10 miles of El Paso. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in El Paso
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 El Paso average
Your land is one point inside El Paso
Everything above resolves to El Paso as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 166K 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 city 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 El Paso Average
El Paso Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across El Paso
- ●One soil character for all of El Paso
- ●Frost dates read at El Paso's scale: Feb 19 to Nov 29
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not El Paso's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in El Paso
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in El Paso, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that El Paso averages can't show:
We read public map data around El Paso — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the El Paso average
How we know this about El Paso
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at El Paso’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 El Paso
When does frost risk typically end in El Paso?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in El Paso typically lands around Feb 19, 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 Mar 12.
When is the first frost in El Paso?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in El Paso typically arrives around Nov 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 15, so the watching starts about Oct 30 — about 283 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in El Paso?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, El Paso sees about 283 frost-free days — roughly Feb 19 through Nov 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 12 to Nov 15, about 248 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in El Paso?
The federal record around El Paso is a meaningful one — 1,451 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (940), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 El Paso?
From about Oct 30 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 29 (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 29. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at El Paso's scale — its 8b band and its 283-day season. Your yard writes its own version of El Paso'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 El Paso’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at El Paso's own scale — its own ~283-day season between 28°F freezes, the 165,647 acres it covers and 1,451 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- El Paso's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- El Paso's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Feb 19 and Nov 29 and the ~283-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,451 documented contamination sites on the federal record near El Paso, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- El Paso's boundary and the 165,647 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~283-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at El Paso's own centroid, the Chihuahuan DesertsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around El Paso 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 El Paso's 165,647 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom El Paso County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom El Paso County
- The growing challenges every Texas grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Texas
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom El Paso County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among El Paso's 165,647 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of El Paso you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 165,647 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 El Paso-wide figureread your own land →