One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

It's a good idea to estimate when you can plant strawberries by using the USDA zone info for Lake Wales.

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 quite a bit of cold which means that you can plant them a lot earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

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

The last month that you can plant strawberries and expect a good harvest is probably October. If you wait any later than that and your strawberries may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your strawberries indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is February 15 in Lake Wales. You can expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Lake Wales is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Lake Wales last frost occurs after February 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 Lake Wales

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 Lake Wales

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Lake Wales.