One of the first steps you take when you are determining your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

One way of estimating when to plant string beans is to consult the USDA zone info for Watsonville.

Planting Calendar for String beans

Frost tolerance for string beans:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost has passed.

String beans do not do well in cold weather which tells us that you must wait until it warms up after the last frost when the weather gets warmer before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant string beans in Watsonville is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant string beans and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your string beans may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your string beans indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on February 15 in Watsonville. You can expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Watsonville is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Watsonville there is a last frost after February 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your string beans in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Watsonville

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	25°F
Highest Expected Low	30°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 30°F.

Plants to Grow in Watsonville

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Watsonville.