One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A way of figuring out when it's a good idea to plant strawberries is to look at the USDA zone info for Forrest City.

Planting Calendar for Strawberries

Frost tolerance for strawberries:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Strawberries are very cold tolerant which tells us that you can plant them much earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant strawberries in Forrest City is February. However, you really should wait until March if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant strawberries and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your strawberries may not have a chance to fully mature. Starting your strawberries indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on March 15 in Forrest City. You can expect an average low temperature of 10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Forrest City is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Forrest City last frost occurs after March 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your strawberries in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Forrest City

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 15°F.

Plants to Grow in Forrest City

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Forrest City.