San Elizario, Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Growers here do well with cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in San Elizario, 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 San Elizario 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 San Elizario — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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San Elizario — the short answer
San Elizario, Texas: USDA zone 8b, about 268 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~268
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 4K 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 San Elizario's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against San Elizario's 268-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in San Elizario
Each reading below is measured for San Elizario itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSan Elizario runs about 268 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
MeasuredSan Elizario 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 San Elizario is in
San Elizario sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at San Elizario's own centroid rather than borrowed from El Paso County.
What Grows in San Elizario
Every plant below cleared San Elizario's own zone 8b and its 268-day season. Each card opens that plant's Texas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in San Elizario?
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 Jan 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 25 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 20 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the calendar nearly circles: cool-season crops take the winter shift, and the next window is always close.
Documented around San Elizario
Survey cells within 31 miles of San Elizario checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 646 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near San Elizario
Closest first, within ~10 miles of San Elizario. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- EXPRESS FUELUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- SAN ELIZARIO ISDUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- FAMILY DOLLAR #7348Brownfields · 0.9 mi
- 7 ELEVEN 53317Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- SAN ELIZARIO HIGH SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- SUPER FRESH FOODSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- IN N OUT C STORE GAS STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- PEREZ PIT STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- SCHOOL BUS GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- WEST TEXAS PROPANEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- QUICK & EASY CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- 7 ELEVEN 53318Underground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from San Elizario'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 San Elizario.
Total Sites
237
within ~10 miles of San Elizario
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
16 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of San Elizario
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of San Elizario
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around San Elizario, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 16 sites within ~10 miles of San Elizario. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in San Elizario
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 San Elizario average
Your land is one point inside San Elizario
Everything above resolves to San Elizario as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 San Elizario Average
San Elizario Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across San Elizario
- ●One soil character for all of San Elizario
- ●Frost dates read at San Elizario's scale: Feb 25 to Nov 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not San Elizario's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in San Elizario
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in San Elizario, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that San Elizario averages can't show:
We read public map data around San Elizario — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the San Elizario average
How we know this about San Elizario
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 San Elizario’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 San Elizario
When does frost risk typically end in San Elizario?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in San Elizario typically lands around Feb 25, 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 18.
When is the first frost in San Elizario?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in San Elizario typically arrives around Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 6, so the watching starts about Oct 21 — about 268 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in San Elizario?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, San Elizario sees about 268 frost-free days — roughly Feb 25 through Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 18 to Nov 6, about 233 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in San Elizario?
The federal record around San Elizario is a meaningful one — 237 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (144), 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 San Elizario?
From about Oct 21 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 20 (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 20. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at San Elizario's scale — its 8b band and its 268-day season. Your yard writes its own version of San Elizario'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 San Elizario’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at San Elizario's own scale — its own ~268-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,416 acres it covers and 237 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- San Elizario's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- San Elizario's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Feb 25 and Nov 20 and the ~268-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 237 documented contamination sites on the federal record near San Elizario, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- San Elizario's boundary and the 4,416 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~268-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at San Elizario's own centroid, the Chihuahuan DesertsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around San Elizario 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 San Elizario's 4,416 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 San Elizario's 4,416 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of San Elizario you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,416 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 San Elizario-wide figureread your own land →