Spanish Valley, Utah, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, pawpaw, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Spanish 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 Spanish 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 Spanish Valley — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Spanish Valley — the short answer
Spanish Valley, Utah: USDA zone 7a, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 9K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~200
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 9K 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 7a is Spanish Valley's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Spanish Valley's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Spanish Valley
Each reading below is measured for Spanish Valley itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSpanish Valley runs about 200 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
MeasuredSpanish Valley sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Spanish Valley is in
Spanish Valley sits in the Colorado Plateaus — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Spanish Valley's own centroid rather than borrowed from San Juan County.
What Grows in Spanish Valley
Every plant below cleared Spanish Valley's own zone 7a and its 200-day season. Each card opens that plant's Utah profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Spanish Valley?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 15; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 12 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 29 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Spanish Valley
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Spanish Valley. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- (D-27-23) 6cad- 1Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- MOAB SITE ASPHALT PLANT CONCRETE BATCHToxics Release Inventory · 1.8 mi
- LEGRAND JOHNSON CONSTRUCTION CO. MOAB SHOPBrownfields · 2.1 mi
- (D-27-22) 1bbb- 1Nitrate · 2.4 mi
- Chipmunk #2 MineMining · 2.4 mi
- Black Ace #3 MineMining · 2.7 mi
- Black Ace #2 MineMining · 2.8 mi
- (D-26-22)35ada- 1Nitrate · 2.8 mi
- (D-26-22)35bdd- 2Nitrate · 3.1 mi
- MOAB CITYPFAS · 3.6 mi
- GRAND WATER AND SEWER AGENCYPFAS · 3.6 mi
- Renegade MineMining · 3.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Spanish 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 Spanish Valley.
Total Sites
110
within ~10 miles of Spanish Valley
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Spanish Valley
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Spanish Valley
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Spanish Valley, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Spanish Valley — Mining (17 sites) and Nitrate (40 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Spanish 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 Spanish Valley average
Your land is one point inside Spanish Valley
Everything above resolves to Spanish Valley as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 9K 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 Spanish Valley Average
Spanish Valley Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Spanish Valley
- ●One soil character for all of Spanish Valley
- ●Frost dates read at Spanish Valley's scale: Apr 12 to Oct 29
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Spanish Valley's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Spanish Valley
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Spanish Valley, Utah — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Spanish Valley averages can't show:
We read public map data around Spanish Valley — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Spanish Valley average
How we know this about Spanish 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 Spanish 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 Spanish Valley
When does frost risk typically end in Spanish Valley?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Spanish Valley typically lands around Apr 12, 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 May 3.
When is the first frost in Spanish Valley?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Spanish Valley typically arrives around Oct 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 15, so the watching starts about Sep 29 — about 200 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Spanish Valley?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Spanish Valley sees about 200 frost-free days — roughly Apr 12 through Oct 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 3 to Oct 15, about 165 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Spanish Valley?
The federal record around Spanish Valley is a meaningful one — 110 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (40), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.8 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 Spanish Valley?
From about Sep 29 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 Oct 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 Oct 29. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Spanish Valley's scale — its 7a band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Spanish 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 Spanish Valley’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Spanish Valley's own scale — its own ~200-day season between 28°F freezes, the 9,089 acres it covers and 110 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Spanish Valley's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Spanish Valley's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 12 and Oct 29 and the ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 110 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Spanish Valley, the closest Nitrate record about 0.8 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Spanish Valley's boundary and the 9,089 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~200-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Spanish Valley's own centroid, the Colorado PlateausUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Spanish Valley's 9,089 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom San Juan County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom San Juan County
- The growing challenges every Utah grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Utah
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom San Juan County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Spanish Valley's 9,089 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Spanish 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 9,089 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.8 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 Spanish Valley-wide figureread your own land →
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