San Mateo, California, sits in USDA hardiness zone 10a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Well-matched crops include artichoke, meyer lemon, california poppy, and cabbage, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in San Mateo, 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 Mateo 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 Mateo — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
San Mateo — the short answer
San Mateo, California: USDA zone 10a, no 28°F killing freeze on record — the season is year-round, across 8K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 10a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Killing freeze
- None on record
- NOAA RCC ACIS 1991–2020, this town’s own record
- City area
- 8K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. The year-round finding is measured — a 30-year record with no 28°F killing freeze in it — never inferred from missing dates.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 10a is San Mateo's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against San Mateo's no killing freeze on record, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in San Mateo
Each reading below is measured for San Mateo itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Winter hardiness
MeasuredSan Mateo sits in USDA hardiness zone 10a.
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 Mateo is in
San Mateo sits in the Central California Foothills and Coastal Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Mediterranean California. That is read at San Mateo's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: San Mateo County is mostly Coast Range. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in San Mateo
Every plant below cleared San Mateo's own zone 10a. Each card opens that plant's California profile. How we score.
Documented around San Mateo
Spotted lanternfly documented 14 miles from San Mateo, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near San Mateo
Closest first, within ~10 miles of San Mateo. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- A & R AUTO BODY LLCBrownfields · 900 ft
- SHINOZAKI AUTOMOTIVEBrownfields · 900 ft
- NEW ALPHA FOURBrownfields · 900 ft
- GIANNINI AUTO BODYBrownfields · 900 ft
- SAN MATEO COLLISION, INC.Brownfields · 900 ft
- SUNNYBRAE ELEMENTARYBrownfields · 900 ft
- IMAD KRAYEM DBA INTEGRITY MOTORSBrownfields · 950 ft
- ERIN MURPHYBrownfields · 950 ft
- DINO EUROPEAN MOTORS LLC DINO MOTORSBrownfields · 1000 ft
- EC AUTO INCBrownfields · 1000 ft
- BENNER AUTOMOTIVEBrownfields · 1000 ft
- AUTOSPORTS EXCLUSIVEBrownfields · 1100 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from San Mateo'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 Mateo.
Total Sites
4,188
within ~10 miles of San Mateo
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
8 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of San Mateo
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of San Mateo
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around San Mateo, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 3,854 sites within ~10 miles of San Mateo. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in San Mateo
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 Mateo average
Your land is one point inside San Mateo
Everything above resolves to San Mateo as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 8K 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 Mateo Average
San Mateo Average
- ●USDA Zones 10a, averaged across San Mateo
- ●One soil character for all of San Mateo
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not San Mateo's 10a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in San Mateo
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in San Mateo, California — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that San Mateo averages can't show:
We read public map data around San Mateo — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the San Mateo average
How we know this about San Mateo
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, with the labelled statewide window where none resolves; 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 Mateo
Is it too late to plant in San Mateo?
No — San Mateo has no 28°F killing freeze in the 30-year station record, so the growing season is year-round and there is no last-frost date to wait for. Planting is paced by rainfall, heat and daylength instead of by frost: start heat-lovers any month, and time cool-season crops (lettuce, brassicas, peas) for the cooler, wetter half of the year or for higher ground. Succession sowing every few weeks works all year, so the limit is what you can keep watered and harvested, not the calendar.
When does frost risk typically end in San Mateo?
It doesn't — San Mateo records no 28°F killing freeze at all across the 1991–2020 station record, so there is no spring frost date to plant after. Cold still matters with elevation: the higher you garden, the cooler the nights, and a few tropical crops sulk below about 60°F even where they never freeze.
How long is the growing season in San Mateo?
Year-round — the 1991–2020 station record for San Mateo contains no 28°F killing freeze, so there is no season to measure between freezes. What paces planting instead is heat, rainfall and daylength: the hottest, wettest stretch is the hard part for cool-season crops, not winter. Elevation is the one real exception — the higher you garden, the colder the nights get.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in San Mateo?
The federal record around San Mateo runs heavier than most — 4,188 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (3,854), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
Everything above is measured at San Mateo's scale — its 10a band and its no killing freeze on record. Your yard writes its own version of San Mateo'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 Mateo’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at San Mateo's own scale — the 7,766 acres it covers and 4,188 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- San Mateo's own USDA hardiness band, zones 10aUSDA PHZM 2023
- No 28°F killing freeze in the 30-year station record covering San Mateo — a year-round growing seasonNOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- 4,188 documented contamination sites on the federal record near San Mateo, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- San Mateo's boundary and the 7,766 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear San Mateo's hardiness zoneGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- San Mateo sits in the Central California Foothills and Coastal Mountains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of San Mateolydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so San Mateo's 7,766 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom San Mateo County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom San Mateo County
- The growing challenges every California grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom California
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom San Mateo County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among San Mateo's 7,766 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of San Mateo you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 7,766 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 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 Mateo-wide figureread your own land →