Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to figure out your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A way of determining when it's possible to plant strawberries is to look at the USDA zone info for Fort Collins.

Planting Calendar for Strawberries

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

Strawberries do ok in a bit of cold which tells us that you can plant them earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant strawberries in Fort Collins 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your strawberries may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your strawberries indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Fort Collins. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Fort Collins and it can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Fort Collins it frosts late in the year after April 15 so always be ready to protect your strawberries in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Fort Collins

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-15°F
Highest Expected Low	-10°F

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

Plants to Grow in Fort Collins

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Fort Collins.