Preparing for a big Zone 9b/10a growing summer

Maybe you’ll be as surprised as I was to learn that northern San Mateo County is the slightly “less coldest” Zone 10a and Zone 9b begins if you were to draw a line from southern Belmont toward San Gregorio State Beach on the coast and runs down south of San Jose. The thing that folks always get wrong about the PHZM is that it only tells you what the coldest days will be, not the warmest. So even though Mountain View gets warmer than Burlingame, it also gets a little bit colder. This matters when it comes to choosing what to plant in your garden and landscape as Zone 9b’s coldest days are 25 to 30 degrees F and Zone 10a’s coldest days are 30 to 35 degrees F.

Well really, let’s be honest. Where I live, we haven’t hit the Zone 10 range 30 to 35 degrees F since Dec. 10, 2013, when it was briefly, at 3:56 a.m., 35 degrees F in the city of San Mateo. And, only 52 of the days since that day (or 1% of the total days that have passed since Dec. 10, 2013, at the time this goes to print) even qualify us to be in the slightly warmer level up Zone 10b of lowest temperatures between 35 and 40 degrees F. Warmer, indeed.

And if your allergies haven’t already told you, all of the plants are on hyperdrive this season so now is the time to get those starters and seeds into the soil! After a wet but relatively mild winter and spring, everything in the ground is happy. Luckily for us, a lot of what grows well in Zone 9b/10a will also grow well in pots as long as you have access to a sunny window or patio, so growing something delicious, nutritious and healthful for your body is well within reach.

When our family lived in a townhouse with a sunny front porch, the entire thing was filled with garden boxes and pots growing strawberries, broccoli, tomatoes, kumquat, mandarin oranges, lemons, eggplant, carrots … if it could grow in a pot, I grew it. My neighbor a few homes down similarly filled her porch with all sorts of pots, but her bounty was full of Asian greens and herbs so we would get a whiff of lemongrass once in a while when the breeze turned in our direction. It was heaven.

If you don’t have a porch, but do have a sunny window, you can also grow a ton of fruit and vegetables inside. When growing inside, make sure to manually or hand pollinate the flowers so your plants still bear fruit (due to lack of flying pollinators, you must now be the pollinator!). And for both indoor and out, don’t forget to fertilize or amend the soil throughout the growing season to replenish nutrients. Think of it as giving your plants their regular vitamins.

I hope you give growing some food a try, especially if you never have before. I’ve built a deep appreciation of where food comes from over the years, as have my kids from watching the plants we planted and cared for bear food. We have benefited in ways I simply cannot quantify from being forcibly slowed down by their pace. And, there’s truly nothing better than picking fresh berries, lemons, tomatoes, etc. from the plant and eating them while they are still warm from being out in the sun.

Annie Tsai is chief operating officer at Interact (tryinteract.com), early stage investor and advisor with The House Fund (thehouse.fund), and a member of the San Mateo County Housing and Community Development Committee. Find Annie on Twitter @meannie.