Fort Bliss, Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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 Fort Bliss, 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 Fort Bliss 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 Fort Bliss — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Fort Bliss — the short answer
Fort Bliss, Texas: USDA zone 8b, about 280 days between hard freezes, across 11K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~280
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 11K 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 Fort Bliss's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Fort Bliss's 280-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Fort Bliss
Each reading below is measured for Fort Bliss itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFort Bliss runs about 280 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
MeasuredFort Bliss 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 Fort Bliss is in
Fort Bliss sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Fort Bliss's own centroid rather than borrowed from El Paso County.
What Grows in Fort Bliss
Every plant below cleared Fort Bliss's own zone 8b and its 280-day season. Each card opens that plant's Texas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Fort Bliss?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 20 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 27 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
Documented around Fort Bliss
Survey cells within 31 miles of Fort Bliss checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 636 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Fort Bliss
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Fort Bliss. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FORT BLISS BIGGS ARMY AIRFIELDPFAS · 0.6 mi
- PENSKE LOGISTICS, LLCBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- DELPHI AUTOMOTIVE SYSTEMS LLCBrownfields · 1.5 mi
- JL-49-13-636Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- DEL NORTE TOOL AND DIE INCBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- UPS EL PASO GATEWAYBrownfields · 1.8 mi
- JL-49-14-4XXNitrate · 1.9 mi
- LUTHER NORTH AMERICAN OF EL PASOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- UPS EL PASOUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- CORCOM INCBrownfields · 2.1 mi
- SIEMENS AUTOMOTIVE CORPBrownfields · 2.1 mi
- CHERRY DISPLAY PRODUCTSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Fort Bliss'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 Fort Bliss.
Total Sites
1,477
within ~10 miles of Fort Bliss
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
4 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Fort Bliss
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Fort Bliss
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Fort Bliss, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 948 sites within ~10 miles of Fort Bliss. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Fort Bliss
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 Fort Bliss average
Your land is one point inside Fort Bliss
Everything above resolves to Fort Bliss as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 11K 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 Fort Bliss Average
Fort Bliss Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Fort Bliss
- ●One soil character for all of Fort Bliss
- ●Frost dates read at Fort Bliss's scale: Feb 20 to Nov 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Fort Bliss's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Fort Bliss
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Fort Bliss, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Fort Bliss averages can't show:
We read public map data around Fort Bliss — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Fort Bliss average
How we know this about Fort Bliss
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 Fort Bliss’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 Fort Bliss
When does frost risk typically end in Fort Bliss?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Fort Bliss typically lands around Feb 20, 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 13.
When is the first frost in Fort Bliss?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Fort Bliss typically arrives around Nov 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 13, so the watching starts about Oct 28 — about 280 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Fort Bliss?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Fort Bliss sees about 280 frost-free days — roughly Feb 20 through Nov 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 13 to Nov 13, about 245 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Fort Bliss?
The federal record around Fort Bliss is a meaningful one — 1,477 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (948), the nearest PFAS record about 0.6 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 Fort Bliss?
From about Oct 28 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 27 (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 27. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Fort Bliss's scale — its 8b band and its 280-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Fort Bliss'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 Fort Bliss’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Fort Bliss's own scale — its own ~280-day season between 28°F freezes, the 11,455 acres it covers and 1,477 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Fort Bliss's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Fort Bliss's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Feb 20 and Nov 27 and the ~280-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,477 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Fort Bliss, the closest PFAS record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Fort Bliss's boundary and the 11,455 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~280-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Fort Bliss's own centroid, the Chihuahuan DesertsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Fort Bliss 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 Fort Bliss's 11,455 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 Fort Bliss's 11,455 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Fort Bliss you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 11,455 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest PFAS record about 0.6 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 Fort Bliss-wide figureread your own land →